Spatial Mismatch beyond Black and White

Janeria A. Easley, Princeton University

I am proposing a project that examines spatial mismatch—defined as the disequilibrium between housing options and employment opportunities-- among the Hispanic and Asian subgroups, as well as foreign born groups. The majority of work on this subject has compared blacks and whites, while this project has a keen interest in uncovering inequality in job access among other disadvantaged minorities. Using data from the 2000 and 2011 Zip Code Business Patterns dataset, the 2000 and 2010 U.S. censuses and the American Community Survey 5 year file, I estimate indices of dissimilarity between jobs and racial/ethnic sub groups. Preliminary results uncover sub-group heterogeneity. In fact, on average, Vietnamese residents have similar outcomes as blacks. Future work will explore whether these differences are driven by differences in settlement patterns among these groups, as well as whether spatial mismatch has similar implications for unemployment across groups.