IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0365.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why is There A Youth Labor Market Problem?

Author

Listed:
  • Richard B. Freeman

Abstract

This paper examines what is known about the causes of the high and increasing levels of youth joblessness and related problems in the youth labor market. Partly because of inconsistencies in reported rates of youth employment across surveys and partly because of problems in measuring key social variables, it is difficult to reach firm conclusions. As far as can be told, much of the relatively high rate of youth joblessness can be attributed to turnover and mobility patterns that are normal in the U.S. economy, but much is also directly related to a dearth of jobs. Demand forces, which have come to be neglected in favor of supply in much popular discussion of youth joblessness, are major determinants of variation in youth employment over time and among areas. For groups facing the most severe joblessness problems, however, the difficulty due to lack of jobs appears to be compounded by problems of employability related to deleterious social patterns. Surprisingly, perhaps, the factors that determine the probability that young persons end up employed or jobless differ substantively from those that determine wages. The paper explains the decline in the earnings of young workers relative to old workers in terms of the increased number of young persons. It speculates that the decline in relative wages may have contributed significantly to the stable ratio of employment to population among young whites. The causes of the downward trend in youth employment for nonwhites -- which constitute one of the major developments of the period -- remain a conundrum.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Freeman, 1979. "Why is There A Youth Labor Market Problem?," NBER Working Papers 0365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0365
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0365.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward M. Gramlich, 1976. "Impact of Minimum Wages on Other Wages, Employment, and Family Incomes," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 7(2), pages 409-462.
    2. Stephen T. Marston, 1976. "Employment Instability and High Unemployment Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 7(1), pages 169-210.
    3. Beverly Duncan, 1965. "Dropouts and the Unemployed," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 121-121.
    4. Richard B. Freeman, 1979. "The Effect of Demographic Factors on Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 14(3), pages 289-318.
    5. Ragan, James F, Jr, 1977. "Minimum Wages and the Youth Labor Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 59(2), pages 129-136, May.
    6. Arnold Katz, 1973. "Teenage Employment Effects of State Minimum Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(2), pages 250-256.
    7. Philip G. Cotterill & Walter J. Wadycki, 1976. "Teenagers and the Minimum Wage in Retail Trade," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 11(1), pages 69-85.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wolfgang Franz, 1979. "The Duration of Youth Unemployment in West Germany: Some Theoretical Considerations," NBER Working Papers 0397, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Floro Ernesto Caroleo & Francesco Pastore, 2009. "Le cause del(l') (in)successo lavorativo dei giovani," Economia & lavoro, Carocci editore, issue 3, pages 107-107.
    3. Holzer, Harry J, 1987. "Informal Job Search and Black Youth Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 446-452, June.
    4. Harry J. Holzer, 1986. "Black Youth Nonemployment: Duration and Job Search," NBER Chapters, in: The Black Youth Employment Crisis, pages 23-73, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Neumark & Olena Nizalova, 2007. "Minimum Wage Effects in the Longer Run," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    2. Price V. Fishback & Andrew J. Seltzer, 2021. "The Rise of American Minimum Wages, 1912–1968," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 73-96, Winter.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2101-2163 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Charles Brown & Curtis Gilroy & Andrew Kohen, 1983. "Time-Series Evidence of the Effect of the Minimum Wage on Youth Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(1), pages 3-31.
    5. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1982. "Minimum Wages and the Demand for Labor," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(3), pages 365-380, July.
    6. John F. Boschen & Herschel I. Grossman, 1981. "Employment Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," NBER Working Papers 0812, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. מנחם כרמי, 1978. "שכר מינימום סקירה ספרותית וההשלכות האפשריות בישראל," Working Papers 358, National Insurance Institute of Israel.
    8. O'Higgins, Niall, 2001. "Youth unemployment and employment policy: a global perspective," MPRA Paper 23698, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Randall Pozdena, 1980. "Welfare and youth unemployment: evidence from a controlled experiment," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Win, pages 26-39.
    10. Michael L. Wachter & Choongsoo Kim, 1979. "Time Series Changes in Youth Joblessness," NBER Working Papers 0384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1979. "The Impact of the Market and the Family on Youth Employment and Labor Supply," NBER Working Papers 0415, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Don Bellante & Gabriel Picone, 1999. "Fast food and unnatural experiments: Another perspective on the New Jersey minimum wage," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 463-477, December.
    13. David Neumark & William Wascher, 1991. "Evidence on Employment Effects of Minimum Wages and Subminimum Wage Provisions From Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws," NBER Working Papers 3859, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Hobijn, Bart & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2015. "On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-82.
    15. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2017. "When the opportunity knocks: large structural shocks and gender wage gaps," GRAPE Working Papers 2, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    16. Chaplin, Duncan D. & Turner, Mark D. & Pape, Andreas D., 2003. "Minimum wages and school enrollment of teenagers: a look at the 1990's," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 11-21, February.
    17. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Smith, Jennifer C. & Wadsworth, Jonathan, 2021. "Population growth, immigration, and labour market dynamics," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1383, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    18. Mario Reinhold & Stephan Thomsen, 2017. "The changing situation of labor market entrants in Germany [Die veränderliche Situation für Berufseinsteiger in Deutschland]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 50(1), pages 161-174, August.
    19. Thomas S. Dee & William N. Evans, 2003. "Teen Drinking and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Two-Sample Instrumental Variables Estimates," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 178-209, January.
    20. Alicia H. Munnell & Steven A. Sass, 2007. "The Labor Supply of Older Americans," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2007-12, Center for Retirement Research, revised Jun 2007.
    21. Dorsett, Richard, 2014. "The effect of temporary in-work support on employment retention: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 61-71.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0365. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.