UNPACKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ADOLESCENT EMPLOYMENT AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: A MATCHED SAMPLES COMPARISON*

A large body of research has consistently found that intensive employment during the school year is associated with heightened antisocial behavior. These findings have been influential in prompting policy recommendations to establish stricter limits on the number of hours that students can work during the school year. We reexamine the linkage between first‐time work at age 16 during the school year and problem behaviors. Our analysis uses group‐based trajectory modeling to stratify youths based on their developmental history of crime and substance abuse. This stratification serves to control for preexisting differences between workers and nonworkers and permits us to examine whether the effect of work on problem behaviors depends on the developmental history of those behaviors. Contrary to most prior research we find no overall effect of working on either criminal behavior or substance abuse. However, we do find some indication that work may have a salutary effect on these behaviors for some individuals who had followed trajectories of heightened criminal activity or substance abuse prior to their working for the first time.     

Chinese Hacking Signals Age of Info Warfare

As it prepares to host the 2008 Olympics, China's authoritarian development model, which has sustained high growth for two decades, is entering a fragile new stage. Tainted toys and other products have made the American consumers on whom China relies wary even as the debt‐and‐deficit ridden American economy relies on China's massive foreign reserves to keep going. In the meantime, China's aggressive search for raw materials in Africa is causing a backlash while its cyberspying probes into Western defense systems are reviving Cold War‐like tensions. The US treasury secretary, a top China expert and former intelligence officials offer their views.