Social Background and Social Context Effects on Young Men’s Idleness Transitions

Abstract

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to assess racial and ethnic differences in the determinants of entering inactivity for 1731 initially active young men. These findings indicate that social context variables play a moderate role in explaining weak labor force attachment among nonwhite youth, but are relatively less important for white youth. On the other hand, the effects of social background characteristics are significant determinants of white youth idleness and less important for nonwhite youth—especially for black youth. Moreover, black–white differences in the effects of social background and social context are large and statistically significant. Local opportunity structure and individual human capital characteristics have large effects on the inactivity of youth as a whole.