Black Male Unemployment in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: The Role of Black Central City Segregation and Job Decentralization

Abstract

Housing segregation has been suggested as an important cause of high unemployment among black Americans, because segregation restricts the black population to living in those central city areas which are losing jobs. Previous studies have not offered a conclusive test of this hypothesis, as they present conflicting findings and have a number of methodological difficulties. Using regression analyses on data from U.S. SMSAs, it is shown that the differential in unemployment rates between blacks and whites in U. S. SMSAs (and particularly SMSAs outside the South) is substantially influenced both by segregation patterns restricting blacks to the central city and by job decentralization. This black/while unemployment differential and the overall unemployment rate in an area determine the level of black unemployment in the area. Thus, central city segregation and job decentralization have important indirect effects on the black unemployment rates of U. S. metropolitan areas.