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Title: Who Escapes? Relation of Church Going and Other Background Factors to the Socio-economic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City Poverty Tracts
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Freeman, Richard B. |
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Who Escapes? Relation of Church Going and Other Background Factors to the Socio-economic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City Poverty Tracts Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference in Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983 Cohort(s): Young Men Publisher: Author Keyword(s): Behavioral Problems; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Family Influences; Inner-City; Poverty; Racial Differences; Religious Influences; Unemployment; Unemployment, Youth Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This paper examines factors which determine "escapes" from the socioeconomic spiral of a ghetto with data from the 1979-80 National Bureau of Economic Research-Mathematica surveys of inner-city black youth (NBER) and from the 1979-81 National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men. The NBER Survey had the advantage of gathering information on youths' allocation of time in a day and on socially deviant behavior (crime, drug use) in addition to standard school and work questions. The NLS data permit comparison of young blacks and whites not possible with the NBER Survey. The primary finding is that even in relatively homogeneous inner city poverty areas there is enough diversity in the measured backgrounds of youths for certain aspects of youths' background to provide remarkably good predictions about 'who escapes.' There is also some indication that at least part of the background- achievement relation among young black men represents a 'true' causal link rather than a sorting of yo uths by background and achievement. The principal variable on which the paper focuses, church-going, is associated with substantial differences in the behavior of youths, and thus in their chances to "escape" from inner city poverty. It affects allocation of time, school-going, work activity, and the frequency of socially deviant activity. In addition to church-going, the background factors that most influenced 'who escapes' are whether other members of the family work and whether the family is on welfare. Youth's allocation of time and other activities are significantly influenced by market opportunities (or perceptions thereof), with those who believe it would be easy to find a job if they had to find one more likely to engage in socially productive activities than others, and youths who see many opportunities to make illegal money less likely to engage in socially productive activities than other youths. |
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Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "Who Escapes? Relation of Church Going and Other Background Factors to the Socio-economic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City Poverty Tracts." Presented: Cambridge, MA, Conference in Inner City Black Youth Unemployment, August 1983. |