Racial/Ethnic Diversity and Economy - A Broad Overview of U.S. Counties, 2000-2014

Abstract

This article explores the relationships between diversity, its components, and their change with economic health at the scale of counties, using major economic characteristics such as change in population, labor-force participation, employment and unemployment, and median household income (overall and by race/ethnicity). Tract-scale and county-scale data from the National Historical Geographic Information System are used to compute diversity scores and its components, to visually analyze the spatial distribution patterns. Correlations & stepwise regression models suggest that diversity-2000 associates positively with greater diversity (overall and among non-whites) in 2014, but negatively with a change in diversity (overall, and non-white). While median household income associates with a positive change in diversity, those for Blacks associate negatively with change in diversity, largely supporting the inertia effects of Black presence as an ‘unattractive' factor. Unemployment associates with diversity & change/non-white-diversity, suggesting unemployment likely prevalent among whites. This has huge socio-economic and politics-based policy implications.