Part-Time Work During Post-Compulsory Education and Examination Performance: Help or Hindrance?

Author(s): Duncan McVicar and Brian McKee
Document Type: Article
Year: 2002
Title of Publication: Scottish Journal of Political Economy
Publisher: Blackwell
Place of Publication: Oxford
Volume: 39
Pages: 393-406
Subject Area(s): Education, Attainment, Employment
Client Group(s) : Students, Young People

Abbreviations: NI - Northern Ireland, UK - United Kingdom, FE - Further Education

Background to the Research

  • The huge expansion of post-compulsory education in the UK over the last 20 years, coupled with the steady erosion of financial support for students at university, is likely to have contributed to the growing numbers of young people in sixth forms and FE colleges that also have part-time jobs.
  • Part-time work, from one perspective, complements education and gives students extra maturity and time-management skills. On the other hand, the zero-sum model argues that given time is limited, part-time work displaces educational activities and is therefore detrimental to educational performance. Existing research finds no clear overall relationship of the effects of part-time work.
  • In NI, around 80% of 16 year olds stay on in some form of post-compulsory education. Existing statistics give little detail on how many of these young people also work part-time. One study of undergraduates in Belfast found that 46% have a part-time job, with 33% working 20 or more hours a week.
  • UK studies have found that 70% of 16-19 year olds work between 6 and 15 hours per week, with 10% working 20 or more hours. Some studies find that those with longer working hours display negative educational performance effects. Also, different groups of people might be affected by part-time work in different ways. This study controls for observed individual characteristics, and examines how the effects of working part-time vary with the number of hours worked.

Research Approach

  • Data from the 1999 second sweep of the Status Zero Survey was used for this paper. It is an interview-based cohort survey of young people first eligible to leave school in NI in June 1993. The second sweep was carried out in June 1999, and contains detailed background information, qualifications, and monthly activity status of young people for the six years following compulsory education (age 16-22). The sample (n = 450) used in this paper was for all those who had a spell in sixth form or FE.
  • The discrete nature of the data led to the authors using an unusual 'bivariate semi-ordered probit model' for the analysis.

Main Findings

  • 35% of the young people in this study engaged in part-time work during their spell of education; if vacation work is included, this figure rises to 45%. This is considerably lower than recent estimates for the UK.
  • The authors speculate that this figure may be explained partly because employment opportunities are harder to come by in NI than the rest of the UK, and also because NI is a comparatively low-wage economy and was pre-minimum wage at the time of the survey, thereby discouraging young people from part-time work.
  • 15% of those who worked part-time worked 20 or more hours per week. Over half worked between 6-15 hours per week.
  • 46% of young people achieved the equivalent of NVQ Level 3 at the end of their education spell.
  • There is a wider spread of qualifications for those who were not involved in part-time work; those engaged in part-time work were more likely to achieve Level 3 than those not engaged in part-time work (57.4% compared to 39.0%).
  • When restricting the data only to those in part-time work, the hours worked/highest qualification level correlation is in fact negative, but not significant i.e. the relationship is negative not probable enough to accept.
  • The exception is the coefficient on the part-time dummy variable for working in paid employment for 15 or more hours per week; it is negative and significant. Therefore, working a small number of hours per week in paid employment is not likely to harm educational performance, but working 15 or more hours per week is detrimental to examination performance.
  • This amounts to a third of the young people in full-time post-compulsory education that also work part-time who are hindering their examination performance, or a seventh of all students in sixth form or FE colleges in NI.
  • There may be some evidence of selection in this study, where those young people engaging in part-time employment have different characteristics than those without part-time employment. A positive correlation between qualification level at age 16 and the binary dummy for part-time work was found, whilst a negative correlation between the binary dummy for part-time work and the dummy for father unemployed was found. This means that it is those young people with higher levels of human and social capital that are obtaining part-time jobs during study. Another explanation is that it is those young people who are planning to go to university who are more likely to choose to work part-time, in order to save money to help pay their way.
  • Young people whose fathers are in managerial, professional or related employment are more likely to have a part-time job than those whose fathers are unemployed.
  • Previous studies have found that part-time employment increases with age. In this case, the effect of age was positive, but not significant.
  • Females are more likely than males to engage in part-time employment during FE.
  • Living in the south of NI reduces the chances of part-time employment.
  • This study lends qualified support to the 'zero-sum' hypothesis of part-time work's effect on educational performance. Policy needs to discourage young people in full-time post-compulsory education from working in paid employment for more than 15 hours per week.

 

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