The role of residential location in conditioning the effect of metropolitan economic structure on male youth employment

Youths have increasingly experienced labor market problems over the last se veral decades. One fruitful line of explanation focuses on structural chang es in the demand for labor stemming from deindustrialization, changing skil l requirements for employees, and increasing supply competition from women and recent immigrants. While these explanations merit attention, they have not adequately considered factors that condition their impact. This paper c onsiders the argument that intra-metropolitan residential location conditio ns the effects of metropolitan labor market structure on black and white ma le youths' employment probabilities. Using a sample of individual-level dat a drawn from the 1990 census combined with metropolitan-level indicators of economic structure, it was found that some structural effects varied betwe en central-city and suburban male youths. The conditioning role of resident ial location, and the subsequent nature of the structural effects, varied c onsiderably between black and white male youths. Interpretations of the con ditioning role of residential location include a variety of social and inst itutional effects on individual residents and the stigmatizing effects of s ome neighborhoods, especially on black male youths.