The pattern of labor force participation of young Americans has shifted greatly during the twentieth century. Entry into full-time work has occurred at increasingly older ages. A correlate, and to some extent a cause, of this change has been the tendency for young Americans to increase their levels of educational attainment. It would be a mistake to assume that young Americans make a one-time transition from school to work, but the longer they are in school, the later the transition to full-time work occurs. Work patterns of men and women have also become more alike during this century. Women are much more likely to continue full-time work after marriage and motherhood than was formerly the case.

The results of these and other changes are observable in the current labor force patterns of American youth, and they provide some suggestions about what we can expect the labor force participation of young Americans to be early in the twenty-first century. This chapter is an attempt to project from the observation of recent patterns some reasonable expectations for the foreseeable future.

The American pattern of transition from school to work is quite different from that found in many other Western industrial societies. In attempting to portray the current and possible future nature of the transition in the United States, I will make reference to some of those societal differences to highlight the nearly unique features of our own system.