Reviews the main theoretical models and recent empirical evidence on the correlation between the minimum wage and youth employment.

Report on the relationship of minimum wage levels and the youth unemployment problem in the USA - covers wages differentials, the distribution of young workers of the 16 to 19 year-old age group in the occupational structure, military service, recruitment standards, job requirements, full time education for students and learner certification programmes, etc., and comments on the effect of national level and local level labour legislation. Statistical tables.

The economic status of young people has declined significantly over the past two decades, despite a variety of programs designed to aid new workers in the transition from the classroom to the job market. This ongoing problem has proved difficult to explain. Drawing on comparative data from Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, these papers go beyond examining only employment and wages and explore the effects of family background, education and training, social expectations, and crime on youth employment. This volume brings together key studies, providing detailed analyses of the difficult economic situation plaguing young workers. Why have demographic changes and additional schooling failed to resolve youth unemployment? How effective have those economic policies been which aimed to improve the labor skills and marketability of young people? And how have youths themselves responded to the deteriorating job market confronting them? These questions form the empirical and organizational bases upon which these studies are founded.

Research paper examining the effects of the minimum wage on youth employment and youth unemployment in Ontario, Canada - based on an economic model, finds that changes in minimum wage rates have a marked effect on labour force participation by men young workers, but a lesser effect on young woman workers; indicates that the effect on unemployment is negligible. Bibliography, statistical tables.