NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS ON THE YOUNG ADULT LIFE COURSE

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DESCRIPTION: This project uses data from both the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the National Survey of Children (NSC), in conjunction with decennial census data, to examine the effects of neighborhood characteristics on adolescents' and young adults' school completion, sexual activity, marriage, out-of-wedlock childbearing, delinquency and drug use, and marital and nonmarital union dissolution. The theoretical framework is grounded most heavily in Wilson's treatise dealing with the impact of neighborhood characteristics on inner-city social dislocations. The project will develop and test regression models of these key events and behaviors in the life course, with particular attention given to how qualities of the respondents' census tract of residence (and other neighborhood equivalents) influence the occurrence of these events net of the effects of family background. The primary explanatory variables include indicators of the socioeconomic and demographic status of the respondents' neighborhoods, such as the poverty rate, the unemployment rate, racial composition, and the availability of marriageable men. Special attention is given to the functional form of the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and the timing of these life-course events; the potentially differential impact of neighborhood characteristics across different socioeconomic, age, and racial groups; factors such as parental supervision, educational aspirations, and peer group norms, that might mediate the effects of neighborhood conditions on adolescent outcomes; and the degree to which differences in the socioeconomic and demographic composition of the neighborhoods inhabited by blacks and whites can explain the often pronounced racial differences in educational attainment, premarital sexual activity, marriage, nonmarital childbearing, delinquency, and divorce. The analysis of this unique, multi-level data set holds promise for refining theoretical models of how neighborhoods affect life events and life chances, for testing recent claims regarding the increasing concentration of disadvantaged groups in underclass areas, and for informing public policies that address these issues.