Why did teenagers stop getting jobs?

[Grey Fox]

Where can I download a car?

You can steal a credit card & use a taxi tho.

[derspiess]

Is this trend a bad thing?

Yes.

Children should be children, there will be plenty of time for work later on in life.

  I'm not sure I see how having a part-time job when you're 16 or 17 spoils your childhood. 

[Grey Fox]

There is less jobs for temporary unspecialized workers?

[Maximus]

Is this trend a bad thing?  Children should be children, there will be plenty of time for work later on in life.

Childhood is for learning what you need to know for life while the stakes aren't so high.

[Maximus]

Maybe that's the real answer to the question then. A shift in cultural thinking about it.

Parents used to view having a job as part of the kids' education, not a hindrance to it.

I think this is a big part of it.

Another is the attitude that kids should be sheltered from the realities of life until they're 18(or 35 in some cases).

[JonasSalk]

Is this trend a bad thing?  Children should be children, there will be plenty of time for work later on in life.

16-19 = children?

[Barrister]

I wonder how that chart would correlate with high school graduation rates.

30 years ago, a hell of a lot more people would simply quit school at age 16 and go to work full time.  Now, not so many do it.

[DGuller]

  I'm not sure I see how having a part-time job when you're 16 or 17 spoils your childhood.

It robs you of free time you're supposed to have after shool?

[Stonewall]

Parents no longer kick little Jimmy to the curb when Jimmy turns 25 and still doesn't have a job. 

What relevance does that have to kids not having jobs while in high school?

The relevance is that it is a trend among parents to not expect anything from their kids aside from going to school and not getting in trouble.  Parents of this generation coddle their kids from the cradle to the grave.  While I have no problem with parents being temporary stabilizers in a young person's turbulent unstable early adult life, the safety net has turned into parachute, body armor, bungee cords and the line you're walking on has been dropped to 6 inches above the ground, which is now covered in feathers.

Parents who don't take steps to correct Jimmy's unemployment at 25 likely never told Jimmy to get a job when he was 16 or 17 either.  Or when he was in college that they were paying for.  Symptom of the underlying problem.  That is the relevance.

[Stonewall]

Is this trend a bad thing?  Children should be children, there will be plenty of time for work later on in life.

Childhood is for learning what you need to know for life while the stakes aren't so high.

Absolutely.  It's also when you learn that life has privileges and responsibilities.  Teaching kids the value of a dollar earned as opposed to a dollar given is important.  I never appreciated how hard my parents worked until I got my first job at age 15.  It was an eye opening experience and one that all kids should have. 

You learn work ethic at an early age.  If you go into the workforce for the first time after college and you have no specialized degree, you're going in with unrealistic expectations.  You've never done that entry level menial job with no appreciation and little monetary reward.   Everyone should wash dishes or wait tables or work construction for a summer or two.  Builds character.

[Barrister]

Is this trend a bad thing?  Children should be children, there will be plenty of time for work later on in life.

Childhood is for learning what you need to know for life while the stakes aren't so high.

Absolutely.  It's also when you learn that life has privileges and responsibilities.  Teaching kids the value of a dollar earned as opposed to a dollar given is important.  I never appreciated how hard my parents worked until I got my first job at age 15.  It was an eye opening experience and one that all kids should have. 

You learn work ethic at an early age.  If you go into the workforce for the first time after college and you have no specialized degree, you're going in with unrealistic expectations.  You've never done that entry level menial job with no appreciation and little monetary reward.   Everyone should wash dishes or wait tables or work construction for a summer or two.  Builds character.

But why does that have to be at age 16-19?

I did my crap jobs in university.  I think I have plenty of character too.

[JonasSalk]

  I'm not sure I see how having a part-time job when you're 16 or 17 spoils your childhood.

It robs you of free time you're supposed to have after shool?

Free time doing what? With your parent's money?

[Ideologue]

  I'm not sure I see how having a part-time job when you're 16 or 17 spoils your childhood.

It robs you of free time you're supposed to have after shool?

Free time doing what? With your parent's money?

Blowjobs are free.

Which is to say, I had a job in high school, and no one would even let me pay them for one.

[dps]

My first thought was that teens in high school are less likely to get a job because legal limits on what types of work can be done by people under age 18 and what hours they are allowed to work have gotten so much more restrictive.  But a most of those restrictions were put in place more than 30 years ago, during a time that the chart shows workforce participation by 16-19 year olds increasing, so that's not it, at least not directly.  (Many of the other theories mentioned in this thread don't fit the time-line very well, either.)   Indirectly, maybe it does have some impact, due to businesses staying open later.  Back around the time that I was senior in high school, very few businesses, even fast food places (which have long been a common place to find school kids working part time), stayed open past 8 or 9 PM during the schoolweek, so they were able to hire 17 year olds as closers, even with the legal restrictions on how late they could be at work.  Now, most of the fast food places are open till 11 or midnight, and they can't hire school kids to close anymore.

Something else that probably has an impact is smaller family size.  As single child families become more common, and large families become more and more uncommon, children in many ways are probably more spoiled.  Adjusted for inflation, household incomes for middle and working class families have been stagnant for about 40 years, or maybe even have declined a small bit, but if there your effective income is about the same as your parents' in 1972, you are still more able to spoil your only child than they were their 4 kids.

[Stonewall]

Is this trend a bad thing?  Children should be children, there will be plenty of time for work later on in life.

Childhood is for learning what you need to know for life while the stakes aren't so high.

Absolutely.  It's also when you learn that life has privileges and responsibilities.  Teaching kids the value of a dollar earned as opposed to a dollar given is important.  I never appreciated how hard my parents worked until I got my first job at age 15.  It was an eye opening experience and one that all kids should have. 

You learn work ethic at an early age.  If you go into the workforce for the first time after college and you have no specialized degree, you're going in with unrealistic expectations.  You've never done that entry level menial job with no appreciation and little monetary reward.   Everyone should wash dishes or wait tables or work construction for a summer or two.  Builds character.

But why does that have to be at age 16-19?

I did my crap jobs in university.  I think I have plenty of character too.

You are an exception to the rule.