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Finding Work in the City Author: Jennifer Johnson Dissertation School: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Pages: 310 Publication Date: February 2004 Availability: Access Number: 10769 Abstract: Despite the current strong economy, urban residents with low skills continue to have difficulty finding good jobs, particularly when they are minorities living in poor neighborhoods. Previous research indicates that social networks are the most common means of job finding and are related to the quality of employment outcomes, but how these relationships vary for workers living in different places is poorly understood. My dissertation asks whether job finding through social networks is influenced by geography, and if so, how. Specifically, I compare the job-search experiences of residents in two cities with similar labor markets but very different urban forms and levels of urbanization, Boston and Los Angeles. My preliminary research indicates that, counter to what the literature would predict, Los Angeles residents found jobs through social networks more often than their Boston counterparts. This finding holds across several categories, including education, race, occupation, and gender. In order to explore this variation, my dissertation will combine quantitative survey data on individuals' job search with qualitative data on how such experiences are influenced by the spatial contexts in which they are embedded. The quantitative data for this project come from the Boston and Los Angeles components of the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, administered to 5,845 individuals in the early 1990s. Data for each respondent's 1990 Census tract have been linked to the survey responses, allowing analyses of geographic and other variables using traditional and spatial statistics. I will also conduct interviews with residents of representative neighborhoods in both cities to develop a more detailed understanding of patterns in the survey data. If network-based job finding varies spatially, this has implications for researchers and policymakers concerned with issues such as workforce development, connecting job seekers to metropolitan resources, as well as place-based employment initiatives. |
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