Trajectories of perceived neighborhood quality across the life course: Sociodemographic determinants and implications for well-being

Abstract

Neighborhoods are an important social context across the life course, with implications for well-being throughout adulthood. However, the capacity to select and/or alter one's neighborhood is dependent in part upon factors such as race, class, and gender. Cumulative advantage/disadvantage and cumulative inequality theory both anticipate growing disparities between the most and least advantaged over time, yet disagree on the a/symmetry of these divergent trajectories. This study analyzes three-wave longitudinal data from the National Study of Midlife Development in the United States (1995–2014) to examine whether trajectories of perceived neighborhood quality differ according to sociodemographic characteristics over a twenty-year period, and whether neighborhood quality influences individual well-being over the same timespan. Results indicate that (1) women, Black and other nonwhite residents, and renters report worse neighborhood quality than their peers; (2) perceived neighborhood quality declines with age for Black and poorly educated residents; (3) perceived neighborhood quality improves with age for highly educated residents; (4) the overall deficit in perceived neighborhood quality among renters is weaker for Black than for White residents, while the overall deficit in perceived neighborhood quality among the poorly educated is contingent upon their having children. Moreover, (5) perceived neighborhood quality predicts both life satisfaction and negative affect over two decades, though its influence on the latter was contingent upon owning or mortgaging one's home rather than renting. Overall, findings offer support for both cumulative advantage/disadvantage and cumulative inequality theory, and suggest implications for theory and future research.