Do Neighborhoods Afiect Work Behavior (original) (raw)

Do neighborhoods affect work behavior? Evidence from the NLSY79

Journal of Labor Economics, 2004

Researchers have argued that neighborhoods are an important determinant of labor activity. Using confidential street address data from the NLSY79, respondents were linked to neighborhood social characteristics and measures of job proximity. A one standard deviation increase in the social characteristics of a neighborhood increases annual hours by 6%; a similar increase in job proximity raises hours by 4%. Labor market activity at the individual level is positively related to labor market activity of neighbors. But employment is not the only neighborhood characteristic that matters. Being in a disadvantaged neighborhood, as measured by a variety of characteristics, reduces market work. Social interactions have non-linear effects with the greatest impact in the worst neighborhoods. Social interactions are more important for less educated workers and Hispanics. Job locations are more important for blacks. Estimates that do not account for neighborhood selection on the basis of time-invariant and time-varying unobserved individual characteristics substantially overstate the social effects of neighborhoods but understate the effects of job access.

Do Neighborhoods Affect Hours Worked? Evidence from Longitudinal Data

Journal of Labor Economics, 2004

Researchers have argued that neighborhoods are an important determinant of labor activity. Using confidential street address data from the NLSY79, respondents were linked to neighborhood social characteristics and measures of job proximity. A one standard deviation increase in the social characteristics of a neighborhood increases annual hours by 6.1%; a similar increase in job proximity raises hours by 4.7%. Labor market activity at the individual level is positively related to labor market activity of neighbors. But employment is not the only neighborhood characteristic that matters. Being in a disadvantaged neighborhood, as measured by a variety of characteristics, reduces market work. Social interactions have non-linear effects with the greatest impact in the worst neighborhoods. Social interactions are also more important for less educated workers. Estimates that do not account for neighborhood selection on the basis of time-invariant and time-varying unobserved individual characteristics substantially overstate the social effects of neighborhoods but understate the effects of job access.

Neighborhood Effects and Individual Unemployment

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

This series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.

Incorporating Neighborhood Choice in a Model of Neighborhood Effects on Income

Demography, 2018

Studies of neighborhood effects often attempt to identify causal effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, such as income, education, employment, and health. However, selection looms large in this line of research, and it has been argued that estimates of neighborhood effects are biased because people nonrandomly select into neighborhoods based on their preferences, income, and the availability of alternative housing. We propose a two-step framework to disentangle selection processes in the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and earnings. We model neighborhood selection using a conditional logit model, from which we derive correction terms. Driven by the recognition that most households prefer certain types of neighborhoods rather than specific areas, we employ a principle components analysis to reduce these terms into eight correction components. We use these to adjust parameter estimates from a model of subsequent neighborhood effects on individual income for the unequal probability that a household chooses to live in a particular type of neighborhood. We apply this technique to administrative data from the Netherlands. After we adjust for the differential sorting of households into certain types of neighborhoods , the effect of neighborhood income on individual income diminishes but remains significant. These results further emphasize that researchers need to be attuned to the role of selection bias when assessing the role of neighborhood effects on

Social housing location and labor market outcomes

I investigate the effects of neighborhood on the labor market outcomes of poor households. I construct a longitudinal data set from the administrative records of welfare recipients in the city of Paris from 2001 to 2007. I observe the relocation of welfare recipients through the selection process of social housing applicants. The institutional process acts as a conditional randomiza-tion device across residential areas in Paris. I measure the impact of location characteristics on future labor market outcomes. I find that -(i) successful applicants tend to relocate in the vicinity of their initial neighborhoods; -(ii) the quality of neighborhood matters for the job finding rate of poor households; -(iii) such effect is stronger for households with children and single women; -(iv) most of the positive effect is driven by unstable jobs that do not allow the individuals to exit the welfare program. These estimates outline that neighborhoods have weak short-and medium-run effects on the ...

Incorporating Neighbourhood Choice in a Model of Neighbourhood Effects on Income

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017

Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

Spatial Mismatch and Neighbourhood Effects: An Econometric Analysis of Unemployment-To-Work

TRANSITIONS 1 Abstract. This work aims at analyzing how urban organization affects unemployment-to-work transitions by considering spatial indicators. We can capture two effects: "spatial mismatch" and "neighbourhood effects". We implement survival models on a sample obtained from the matching of three French databases. We analyze the duration of the first employment with spatial indicators and we control for three potential biases (endogeneity bias, selection bias and attrition bias).

Neighborhood Effects and Neighborhood Choice

2009

This paper contributes to the social interactions literature by utilizing data on households' residential sorting. We employ a standard neighborhood effects model in which households' valuation of neighborhoods derives from neighborhood effects in the formation of human capital and in the process of enculturation. We use micro data from the PSID merged, using geocodes, with contextual information at the levels of census tracts from the 2000 US Census. We find support for a key implication of neighborhood effects models: households with children are more likely to move out of neighborhoods whose attributes are not favorable to the production of human capital and the transmission of parents' cultural traits, and to move into neighborhoods with desirable such attributes. This effect is absent for households without children. * We are grateful to Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger and the staff of the Tufts GIS Lab for priceless assistance with GIS work, and to Bob Haveman for help in acquiring access to the sensitive geocoded data of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.

NEIGHBORHOOD EFFECTS: ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND LOOKING BEYOND THEM*

2010

ABSTRACT The paper addresses the empirical significance of the social context in economic decisions. Decisions of individuals who share spatial and social milieus are likely to be interdependent, and econometric identification of social effects poses intricate data and methodological problems, including dealing with self-selection in spatial and social groups.

Neighbourhood Effects, Housing Tenure and Individual Employment Outcomes

Neighbourhood Effects Research: New Perspectives, 2011

This paper investigates whether individuals living in neighbourhoods with high concentrations of unemployment are less likely to enter work if they are unemployed and more likely to lose their job if they are employed. The main challenge in the neighbourhood effects literature is the identification of causal neighbourhood effects. A particular problem is that individuals do not randomly select neighbourhoods to live in: the selection process is often linked to the labour market situation and potential of individuals. To get more insight in neighbourhood effects we run separate models for social renters and owner occupiers. This study uses anonymised individual level longitudinal data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study for 1991 and 2001 with multiple neighbourhood scales operationalised. Based on the results we argue that any apparent neighbourhoods effects that were present in models of the full population are at least partly an artefact of different neighbourhood selection mechanisms. The conclusions of the paper call for a more nuanced treatment of neighbourhood effects and the development of models that seek to include neighbourhood selection from the outset. JEL Classification: