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Title: Spatial Mismatch and the Formation of Bad Ghettos: New Evidence from the US Postal Service

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2007

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Abstract: Today, residential segregation is associated with poor economic outcomes for African-Americans but, in the mid-twentieth century, the opposite was true. What changed? One explanation emphasizes the relative loss of jobs in the central city. We focus on black employment at the US Postal Service, which has remained centralized for largely exogenous reasons. If job access matters, we should see African-Americans substituting toward postal employment over time, particularly in cities whose black neighborhoods are clustered downtown. From 1960 onward, blacks in segregated cities have been more likely than whites to work for the postal service. This relationship did not exist in 1940 or 1950, when private sector jobs near black enclaves were plentiful. Furthermore, this pattern does not hold for mail carriers whose work is distributed throughout the metropolitan area. As blacks gained access to the suburbs, the magnitude of this relationship has declined. Black occupational choices suggest that spatial mismatch was potent in the 1950s and 1960s, when firms began to suburbanize but black households were unable to follow, but is less important today.

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Authors: Boustan, Leah P.; Margo, Robert A.

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Family and Marriage, Housing and Segregation, Poverty and Welfare

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