The decline of male employment in low-income black neighborhoods, 1950–1990 (original) (raw)

Many urban theorists, notably W. J. Wilson, hypothesize that rates of male joblessness in lowincome urban neighborhoods have increased since the 1960s. No comprehensive study examines this claim, and case studies that consider it do not adjust for changes in rates of school enrollment and the size of the old-age population. This paper tabulates male employment trends in census tracts in 49 metropolitan areas from 1950 to 1990 and models causes of these trends. The results show a marked decline in the employment of working-age men in low-income black tracts, both in absolute terms and relative to the employment rates of male residents of other types of tracts. By 1990, more than 40 percent of working-age black men in low-income tracts were not employed, about two-thirds of whom were adults between the ages of 25 and 64. Models indicate that declining urban manufacturing employment contributed to the declining rates of work for black men in low-income neighborhoods, but they do not support explanations based on spatial mismatch, suburbanization, or black out-migration. The paper concludes that Wilson is right to focus on the employment problem of low-income black neighborhoods, and that black male joblessness in low-income neighborhoods in 1990 reached crisis levels.