The Effect of Employment on Delinquent Behavior Among Youth in Hidden Situation

ConclusionResults showed that 15.1% of youths in hidden situations had jobs. They mainly worked in an Internet-based, home-based manner, with some of them being self-employed or working as freelancers, and they were able to make money from their jobs. This suggests that these youths’ being jobless is a prejudice; they are not necessarily those who lack social status as described in previous literature [e.g., Refs. (11, 12, 76)] but can engage in work during prolonged seclusion as their preferred lifestyle and use it to support their lives. Also, the relationship between employment and delinquent behavior was significant in the context of youths in hidden situations. Employment serves as a form of informal social control (38) or “meaningful social attachment” (95, 381) to reduce the likelihood of being involved in delinquent behavior by creating opportunities for supervising behavior, increasing the risk for offending, decreasing the idle time for offending, and allowing new opportunities to build new social networks. Also, employment helps youths in hidden situations to transform, develop a new identity, develop a new set of values, and enhance their self-esteem (37, 38, 48). Additionally, it is noted that the quality of jobs plays a part in these youth’s desistance in delinquent acts (28, 50). As stated in previous research, the importance of employment in reducing delinquent behavior is the positive experience that employment brings (e.g., percei...
Source: Frontiers in Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research