Using data from the 2010 Survey of Activities of Young People (SAYP) this paper examines the relationship
between parent absenteeism and adolescents’ (10-17 years old) participation in the labour force in South
Africa. Due to widespread poverty and the impact of HIV/AIDS, adolescents are forced to forego schooling to
seek employment. As Stanton et al. (2004) posited, parent absenteeism affects adolescents’ school completion
rates and is associated with risky behaviour. This paper argues that parent absenteeism also forces adolescents
to seek employment. Descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression are used. Results
show that 1.58 adolescents per 1,000 adolescent population work 10 or more hours a week. Further, 38.7%
of adolescents have at least one parent absent from the household. Almost 2% of adolescents who have at
least one parent absent are not enrolled in school. Finally, adolescents are less likely to work more than 10
hours a week if a mother is absent from the household (0.34), yet more likely to work more than 10 hours if
a father is absent (1.21).