Reinforcement or compensation? The effects of parents' work and financial conditions on adolescents' work values during the Great Recession

•We document an intergenerational reinforcement process; parents' rewarding work conditions foster adolescents' work values.•Changes in household income and parents' job security shape adolescent children's work values.•Parents' perceptions of financial stress and the intrinsically rewarding nature of their jobs do not.•Limited support for a compensation process is also evident for unemployment among parents with lower education levels.•Study findings also document the intergenerational transmission of work values.

The Great Recession brought many changes to the work and financial lives of American families. Little is known, however, about how changes in parental work conditions in recessionary times influence children's vocational development. Drawing on data from the Youth Development Study, we examine whether parents' recessionary experiences shape adolescents' work values. The findings indicate that adolescents' work values are shaped through a cross-generational reinforcement model; both extrinsic and intrinsic values are stronger when parental work conditions are more rewarding. In an exception to this pattern, unemployment among parents with low levels of education (high school degrees or less) is positively associated with children's extrinsic and intrinsic orientations, more consistent with a compensation model.