Sex, drugs, and rolling rocks: Adolescent counter-normative behaviors and their job mobility as young adults

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter tests whether adolescent counter-normative behaviors increase voluntary and involuntary job exits in young adults. This prediction extends the social sorting view of employment outcomes to cover concealable background characteristics, which has implications for involuntary mobility after entering the job.

Methodology

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1997 data are analyzed through survey-weighted Cox models of involuntary and voluntary job change. The key variables are adolescent use of alcohol and illegal drugs, and early sexual debut.

Findings

The findings show that sex and use of drugs in the early teens increase involuntary job exits, controlling for current behaviors, but do not have discernible effects on voluntary job exits. The effects of adolescent behavior appear stronger in multi-establishment firms and for Hispanic and black individuals.

Social implications

The findings indicate that employee sorting of individuals based on background does not end at the point of hiring, but continues through post-hiring rates of job exit. The findings indicate differential treatment of employees as a function of stigmatized behaviors in the past, and thus reveal a form of discrimination that has not been investigated earlier.

Value of the chapter

The findings in the chapter provide support for a theoretical view of social sorting by the employer as a driver of job exits. It extends the scope of characteristics that may result in social sorting to those who are concealable at the point of hiring, and with consequences after hiring. Because these include adolescent behaviors that are stigmatized, it shows a new mechanism linking adolescent experiences with adult work outcomes.

Citation

Greve, H.R. (2014), "Sex, drugs, and rolling rocks: Adolescent counter-normative behaviors and their job mobility as young adults", Adolescent Experiences and Adult Work Outcomes: Connections and Causes (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 25), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 159-190. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320140000025006