Most past research on the youth employment effects of the minimum wage focuses only in men, or makes no distinction between men and women. The aim of this project is to fill this gap in our knowledge by examining the labor market experience of the 6,398 young women survey in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). A measure of employment effects will be the time it takes to get a first job after leaving school. If the young woman drops out of the labor market or has difficulty finding a job after leaving school, the effects are likely to persist in alter life. Hence, this first spell of non-employment is of intrinsic interest. In later work, subsequent employment histories will be analyzed and the as will the determinants of the decision to terminate or continue schooling. The results of the research will be of interest for a umber of reasons. First, little is known about the effects of the minimum wage on the employment of young women. Second, there has not been any work on employment effects of the minimum wage which uses recent American data. The NLSY also includes much more detailed information about the family and community background of the teenagers than previous studies have been able to take into account. Finally, the NLSY over-samples blacks and hispanics so it will be possible to do a detailed analysis by race.
