This project will examine the effects of neighborhood characteristics on adolescents' school completion and educational attainment, sexual activity and non-marital childbearing, and delinquency and drug use. The theoretical framework is grounded most heavily in William J. Wilson's treatise dealing with the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on inner-city social dislocations. The primary explanatory variables will include indicators of the socioeconomic and demographic status of the adolescent's neighborhood, such as the poverty rate, the unemployment rate, racial composition, and mate availability. Special attention will be given to the functional form of the relationship between neighborhood economic disadvantage and these behaviors; the potentially differential impact of neighborhood characteristics across different socioeconomic, age, and racial groups; factors such as parental supervision, educational and occupational aspirations, and peer group norms, that might mediate the effects of neighborhood conditions on adolescent outcomes; and the degree to which differences in the socioeconomic and demographic composition of the neighborhoods inhabited by blacks and whites can explain the often pronounced racial differences in educational attainment, premarital sexual activity, and non-marital fertility. The analysis of this unique, multi-level data set holds promise for refining theoretical models of how neighborhoods affect life events and life chances, for testing recent claims regarding the increasing concentration of disadvantaged groups in underclass areas, and for informing public policies that address these issues.
