The association between work and substance use among justice-involved young people: Findings from panel data

The relationship between employment and substance use is well documented, reporting a positive association between the two factors. However, previous studies were mostly based on a cross-sectional design; little is known whether the same directionality can be confirmed by a longitudinal design. Moreover, such associations focusing on justice-involved youth have received relatively little analysis. To address the gaps in the literature, we aim to examine to what extent employment is associated with different types of substance use over time among juvenile justice-involved youth who transition to young adults. Using the most recent three waves of panel data from the Pathways to Desistance study (N = 931) and a hybrid approach combining within- and between-cluster effects, we find some evidence of between-individual effects of employment, but no within-individual effects. Specifically, an inter-individual increase in employment is more likely to result in alcohol use, but less likely to result in drug use, implying that employment may prompt socialization of youth through drinking behaviors, whereas it may also deter drug use. In contrast, no intra-individual increase in employment is significantly associated with any type of substance use, implying that the employment effect may be limited. This highlights that employment may not contribute to changing an individual’s proclivity for substance use in our study participants.