UNRAVELING THE TANGLE OF PATHOLOGY - THE EFFECT OF SPATIALLY CONCENTRATED JOBLESSNESS ON THE WELL-BEING OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS

In this paper we use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to construct a series of event history files that follow young black men and women a s they age year by year from 15 to 30. Given a person's individual, fa mily, and neighborhood characteristics in year t, we predict the odds of various outcomes in year t + 1: getting a job and going to jail for males, and getting married and having a teenage birth for females. Ou r key predictor from a theoretical viewpoint is the percentage of jobl ess males in the respondent's census tract. Controlling for various so cioeconomic characteristics of the individual and family, we find that this factor has a strong effect in predicting the odds of various pro blematic socioeconomic outcomes. Young African American men who live i n neighborhoods of concentrated male joblessness are significantly mor e likely to be jobless themselves. Likewise, black women who live in a reas where jobless men predominate are considerably less likely to get married, but this factor does not affect the odds of teenage childbea ring. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.