LOS ANGELES -- Young adults raised in the central city and inner-ring suburbs of Los Angeles are less likely to have a job compared to new immigrants of the same age living farther from Los Angeles, shows a recent study from the University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate.
Author Gary Painter, Ph.D., director of research at the Lusk Center, said his paper --Immigrants and the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: Employment Outcomes Among Immigrant Youth in Los Angeles - suggests that the study group of 16-21 year-olds born in and around Los Angeles may be reluctant to leave their families and neighborhoods to search for jobs that have moved to the far northern and eastern parts of LA County and also to Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
"The immigrants' lack of roots in a new country influences their determination to settle down in neighborhoods with better prospects for employment," he added. He said further research would be needed to determine if the youths faced with low job prospects will turn to more schooling that could extend their opportunities beyond entry-level positions.
Previous studies have not analyzed the impact of job accessibility across geographies and have not looked at how the children of immigrants will fare, Painter explained. "New immigrants are finding where the jobs are because employment needs are second to education. But once they establish roots, location trumps employment." He said cities can use this data to show the need for adult education classes to help residents win the higher paying skilled jobs available in the central city and nearby suburbs.
"Cities with high numbers of immigrants such as LA, Miami and New York need to realize that if the second and third generations are not moving to where the jobs are, high-speed transportation corridors may need to be developed," explained Painter. Immigrants have a strong social network of support so it benefits a city economically to keep them employed no matter where the jobs are."
Painter and co-author Cathy Yang Liu and Duan Zhuang of the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development based their research on Metropolitan Los Angeles data from the 2000 Census. The paper appears in the December 2007 issue of Urban Studies. The full paper is at: http://usj.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/44/13/2627.
Contact:
Giuliana Perrone (213) 821-5468; perrone@sppd.usc.edu
Francie Murphy (858) 350-5152; francie@fmassociates.com