Protecting youth at work

The National Research Council's report "Protecting Youth at Work" addresses the health and safety consequences of work by youth in the United States. The report finds that a higher proportion of U.S. youth work than in any ot her developed nation and that as much as 80% of youth will have worked duri ng their high school years. The majority of adolescents are employed in the retail and service sectors. Positive aspects of this work include lessons in responsibility, punctuality, dealing with people, good money management, and gaining self-esteem, independence and new skills. On the negative side , however, students who work long hours are less likely to advance as far i n school as other students, are more likely to smoke cigarettes and use ill egal drugs, be involved in other deviant behavior may get insufficient slee p and exercise, and may spend less time with their family. Working youth ap pear to have injury rates (4.9 per 100 FTE) almost twice that of adult work ers (2.8 per 100 FTE). There is evidence that each year over 200,000 youth experience work injuries and at least 70 die. The report includes an extens ive list of recommendations to safeguard the health and well-being of young workers: improved government regulations as well as their enforcement, bet ter data collection and analysis to provide essential information on the di stribution and consequences of youth employment, education of key actors su ch as employers, parents, teachers and the youth themselves, and research t o fill critical knowledge gaps. Am. J. Ind. Med. 36:579-583, 1999. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.