Spatial mismatch or racial mismatch?
By: Judith K. Hellerstein, David Neumark, Melissa McInerney.
Contributors: Neumark, David.; McInerney, Melissa.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13161.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13161.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 35
Subjects: Discrimination in employment -- Econometric models; Race discrimination -- Econometric models; African Americans -- Employment; Labor market
Description: "We contrast the spatial mismatch hypothesis with what we term the racial mismatch hypothesis -- that the problem is not a lack of jobs, per se, where blacks live, but a lack of jobs into which blacks are hired, whether because of discrimination or labor market networks in which race matters. We first report new evidence on the spatial mismatch hypothesis, using data from Census Long-Form respondents. We construct direct measures of the presence of jobs in detailed geographic areas, and find that these job density measures are related to employment of black male residents in ways that would be predicted by the spatial mismatch hypothesis -- in particular that spatial mismatch is primarily an issue for low-skilled black male workers. We then look at racial mismatch, by estimating the effects of job density measures that are disaggregated by race. We find that it is primarily black job density that influences black male employment, whereas white job density has little if any influence on their employment. This evidence implies that space alone plays a relatively minor role in low black male employment rates."--abstract.
Notes: "June 2007"

Includes bibliographical references.

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