Recent surveys indicate that at least half of adolescents who attend school are also part of the commercial work force, and half of those employed work more than 20 hours per week (Steinberg & Dornbusch, 1991). Such extensive work schedules have led to concerns about possible detrimental effects on the development or well-being of adolescents who work these schedules and also attend school. In one study, for example, increasing hours of employment were associated with poorer school performance, higher psychological stress, more frequent substance abuse, and reduced parental supervision (Steinberg & Dornbusch, 1991). Other studies have reported that students working the most hours tended to obtain the least sleep and were the most sleepy during the day (Carskadon, 1989–1990, 1990). Such studies raise the distinct possibility that increased sleepiness associated with the working hours of adolescents could place those individuals at risk of accident or injury or at a developmental disadvantage. The purpose of the present review is to examine the association between working hours, sleep, and sleepiness to determine whether there are parallels to adolescent sleep that may help focus future sleep research in this age group.

Both laboratory and field studies of work scheduling have demonstrated a reliable association between working hours, sleep quantity and quality, and waking alertness. Both the timing of working hours within a day (circadian timing) and the number of hours worked in a day or week can affect sleep and alertness.