The link between childhood TV watching and unemployment cannot be ignored according to a recent study co-authored by an AUT University academic, and the next step is to look at why children prefer television to other activities.
Lecturer Erik Landhuis, from the Department of Social Sciences at AUT University, was the lead author of a study on the association between childhood and adolescent television viewing and unemployment in adulthood.
Data from the study came from Otago University's Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, where Landhuis was a research fellow prior to coming to AUT, and looked at the television viewing of 1037 children born in Dunedin.
Researchers looked at television viewing, educational achievement, family socioeconomic status, cognitive ability and early behavioural problems during the course of the study.
Results then showed most study members reported at least some unemployment between the ages of 18 and 32 years. In assessing the association between childhood television viewing and unemployment the study found that watching television as a child predicted a period of at least six months continuous unemployment.