Teenagers in the U.S. Labor Force: Local Labor Markets,Race, and Family1

Abstract Drawing on theories of family organization and labor-market structures, it is argued that teenagers represent a useful target population for research on the effects of race, household characteristics, and local labor markets on labor-force participation. Toward this end, predictive models of labor-force participation are applied to a sample of all white and black 16- to 18-year-olds living at home in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan labor-market areas in the United States. Beyond the higher labor-force participation of white youths, both local labor-market characteristics and family resources affect teenage labor-force participation. Participation of white youths was more closely linked to family resources and local economic conditions than that of black youths. Queuing theories of labor-force participation are used to interpret these findings.