Effect of students' self-esteem on later employment status: Interactions of self-esteem with gender and race

This study uses panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test whether prior psychological status would predict later workforce outcomes in non-college-bound young people. Self-esteem measured in 1980, while respondents were still in high school, was used to predict employment status in 1987 and proportion of time spent unemployed in the years between leaving school and 1987. The results showed that high-school students with lower self-esteem were more likely to be unemployed but that this relationship was stronger for males than females and for whites than blacks. These findings were interpreted in terms of self-esteem as a psychological asset in securing and holding employment. The gender and race differences in the value of this asset were considered in terms of social repression (sexism and racism) and in terms of different sources and meanings of self-esteem across gender and racial groups.