Immigrants and the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: Employment Outcomes Among Immigrant Youth in Los Angeles

Submitted by Urban Insight on Wed, 07/25/2012 - 13:19
Author

Cathy Yang Liu, Gary Painter, Duan Zhuang

Year Published
2005
Abstract
This paper examines the effect of space and race/ethnicity on labor force
participation outcomes among minority and immigrant youth in the Los Angeles
metropolitan areas. This research contributes to the spatial mismatch literature by
analyzing the differences between first and second generation immigrants in addition to
exploring the role of race and job accessibility on the likelihood of working. It does so
by comparing the employment status of comparable youth (16-21) who reside in central
cities, inner ring suburbs and outer ring suburbs respectively using 2000 Census PUMS
data. Finally, we model the decision to attend school and to work in a bivariate probit
framework to discover how the correlation across decision may change the estimated
impact of race and space on employment. The results of this study suggest that both
space and race play a role in probability that a youth will work, but that the decision to
attend school does not impact influence the estimated impact of space and race on
employment.
Research Category

Download