A longitudinal study of employment's effects on African American's sex risk behaviors as they transition from adolescence to young adulthood

The effects of work during adolescence and emerging adulthood have been presented from two opposing perspectives. The first perspective assumes employment during adolescence promotes the healthy transition into adulthood by presenting youth with opportunities for adult mentoring and role modeling. The second perspective suggests that employment during adolescence impels youth into a fast-paced and precocious transition into adulthood that increases their health risks. Nonetheless, most studies exploring the effects of work during adolescence and emerging adulthood have focused on the mental health symptomatology and substance use behaviors of cross-sectional samples of mostly White participants. In addition, the Theory of Gender and Power suggests that the work environment tends to favor males, placing females at greater risk by compromising their financial independence and hindering the attainment of equitable sexual relationship power. The three studies in this dissertation build on this literature by exploring whether work influences youth's sex risk behaviors in a sample of African American youth followed across 8 Waves covering adolescence and emerging adulthood. Growth curve modeling suggested that working greater number of hours across adolescence and emerging adulthood was associated with greater sex risk behaviors, including older sex partners and higher sexual intercourse frequency. These effects were higher for females and youth who did not complete high school. Working youth may adopt greater adult roles and behaviors such as having older sex partners; however, having older sex partners over time did not mediate the relationship between youth's number of hours worked and sex risk behaviors over time. While sex partners' age differences decreased for male youth across adolescence and emerging adulthood, sex partners' age differences increased for female youth over the same periods. This trend persisted after accounting for the number of hours worked, changes in self-esteem, and alcohol use frequency across adolescence and emerging adulthood. Taken together, these studies offer support for the work consequences perspective. Decreasing sex partners' age differences, increasing self-esteem, and decreasing alcohol use may be effective in reducing sex partners' age differences across adolescence and emerging adulthood. This information may be relevant in the development of HIV-prevention interventions for working youth.