Family problems and youth unemployment

This study attempted to determine the extent to which family and personal c haracteristics relate to the employment situation of adolescents. Data were drawn from the Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development (USAD), which inves tigated, longitudinally, a national sample of Dutch youths aged 12 to 24 ye ars in 1991. Specifically, two waves of a sample of 955 non-school-going re spondents between 18 and 27 years old were analyzed. Parental divorce, pare ntal unemployment (only for males), low parental affective involvement, and adolescent relationship problems were related to youth unemployment, but e ducational career and work commitment were not. For males, parental unemplo yment demonstrated the strongest correlation with youth unemployment. For f emales, only variables in the relational domain played a role in explaining unemployment; relationship variables were also important predictors of mal e unemployment. The results suggest that the family factors included in thi s study are better predictors of youth unemployment than are the classic in dividual (personal) variables.