Volume 19, Issue 1
2008

 

 

High rates of male joblessness not only drain communities of the social and economic resources that sustain neighborhood institutions, they also limit children’s exposure to mainstream role models, reduce the pool of marriageable men, and make illicit activities more attractive to young males. This study uses tract-level census data to examine how the geography of male joblessness changed in metropolitan areas between 1970 and 2000.

 

The number of neighborhoods in which the majority of working-age men are jobless has risen sharply over the past three decades. Metropolises in the Northeast, Midwest, and South and those with larger black populations have experienced the greatest increases in concentrated male joblessness. As the number of neighborhoods with low male employment has grown, their social and demographic characteristics have diverged from those of other
neighborhoods, with increasing percentages of racial and ethnic minorities, female-headed families, and impoverished people and more vacant residential properties.