This study aims at clarifying determinant factors which impel adolescents to work through the comprehension of their reality and of the damages to health caused by the work process. It is a qualitative study based on the historical materialism and on the dialectic hermeneutics methodology. Empirical data were collected from an educational/mediating institution which qualified students for the labor market in Cascavel-PR, Brazil by means of documental analysis and semi-structured interviews. The determinant factors leading to work at an early age were: poverty, social inequality, income concentration, market demand, educational provision, educational standards, family constitution, determinations by the production system and the need for adolescents to have their own income.
adolescent; labor market; work conditions