Paperboy

A paperboy is someone – often an older child or adolescent – who distributes printed newspapers to homes or offices on a regular route, usually by bicycle or automobile.

In Western nations during the heyday of print newspapers during the early 20th century, this was often a young person's first job, perhaps undertaken before or after school.

This is due partly to the disappearance of afternoon newspapers, whose delivery times worked better for school-aged children than did those of morning papers, which were typically delivered before 6 a.m.

The numbers have also been affected by changing demographics, the availability of news and newspapers on the Internet; employment laws (particularly the mid-20th century ban of child labour), the decline of small towns that could be traversed by bicycle, and growing concerns for the safety of un-escorted children, all of which have led many newspapers to switch to delivery by adults.

Today, they are mainly used by weekly community newspapers and free shopper papers, which still tend to be delivered in the afternoons.