Job seeking and job acquisition in early adolescence

Abstract

In Australia, 42% of full-time students work in part-time jobs, and recent research indicates that a substantial majority of these want to increase their hours of employment. Although research has identified a range of positive and negative outcomes for students, almost all of the studies have been cross-sectional, thereby limiting the conclusions that can be drawn. Further, there have been no studies that have investigated the predictors of job-seeking among school-aged adolescents. We propose the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a possible model for examining the experiences of paid employment for adolescents at school and consider questions that remain to be answered before interventions may be implemented to advantage students at the interface between school and work.