The downside of adolescent employment: hazards and injuries among working teens in North Carolina

Occupational injuries are major adverse outcomes of teen employment in the United States. Using data from a survey of teens employed in three different retail trade settings (food service, grocery, and other retail) in the state of North Carolina, we examine how experience, gender, work setting, and the pace of work are associated with hazard exposures and injury experiences. Multivariate analyses show that, after controlling for individual and job-level variables, perceived work-pace pressure and hazard exposure are positively associated with variation in the types of injury experiences. We emphasize the need to include characteristics of the workplace and the labor process when assessing the adverse consequences of work on adolescent well-being.