Is spatial mismatch really spatial, and really a mismatch? Recent evidence on employment among Hispanic and Black people in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

In 1968, John Kain hypothesized that Black residential suburbanization had not accompanied suburbanizing jobs, leading to poor employment outcomes for young Black men. This paper reinvestigates spatial mismatch in the 2000s and 2010s, focusing on differences between urban and suburban White, Black, and Hispanic residents of the U.S. We find some evidence for spatial mismatch when pooling data across all years, and stronger evidence for mismatch among Black people than among Hispanic people. First, both urban Black and Hispanic people earn lower wages than equivalent suburbanites, all else equal. Second, urban Black people have a higher probability of un- and under-employment relative to their suburban counterparts. Third, Black and Hispanic people have longer commutes than equivalent Whites do, but suburban residence mitigates this effect. Yet we also find evidence that in recent years, spatial mismatch may not be as serious a problem as many people believe. For example, the wage premium for suburban people—White, Black, and Hispanic—has fallen. Further, urban Hispanic people are not more likely to be unemployed than equivalent suburbanites. Finally, urban and suburban Black and Hispanic people do not work in different types of occupations, so location is not associated with suburbanites of color holding more or less “desirable” jobs.

KEYWORDS:

• Inequality
• labor markets
• suburbs
• spatial mismatch

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2022.2067761.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Note that we include not only age as a variable in all models, but also age squared due to the non-linear relationship age has with many labor market outcomes such as employment.

2. Asian people living in the U.S. tend to have a wide range of experiences in labor market outcomes and residential location. This often varies based on country of origin; for example, East Asian-origin people tend to have higher incomes and education than people of Southeast Asian-origin (Paik et al., 2014). For more in-depth study of spatial inequality and Asians, see Kim and White (2010) and Easley (2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julene Paul

Julene Paul is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies. Her current research explores connections between transportation access, job locations, and economic outcomes. She has also studied the relationship between transit ridership and demographic change in California, the mobility impacts of trends in vehicle ownership, and the factors that influence sharing behaviors.

Eric A. Morris

Eric A. Morris is Professor of City and Regional Planning at Clemson University. His primary focus is transportation, particularly how transportation and urbanization contribute to our quality of life. His current research focuses on transportation, location and happiness; transportation, location, time use and activity patterns; and access to employment, shopping, food, and medical care. He has a strong interest in equity and disadvantaged populations. He also conducts research in the field of transportation history and is currently co-authoring a book on the development and financing of the freeway system.