Geographies of Opportunity for Youth Across the Contiguous United States

Abstract

Opportunity youths (OY) are youths between 16 and 24 years of age who are neither in school nor working. Research suggests that youth disconnection can have negative consequences on youths’ well-being, their communities, and the economy at large. The existing literature however neglects the underlying socio-demographic and economic factors that systematically contribute to the cause of youth disconnection in the United States. This study aims to explore the characteristics associated with youth disconnection and their spatially varying effects in different regions across the contiguous United States. Using data from the 2015 to 2019 5-year American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, results suggest that areas with higher percentages of OY are located in the Sunbelt region (e.g., southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia). Moreover, a multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) analysis illustrated spatially varying relationships with disconnection, demonstrating that factors have unique effects across different geographic areas. The potential impact of intersectionality for OY by race and ethnicity, ability, nationality, language, income, and parenting status is discussed. These results highlight the influence of local contexts in creating and reinforcing youth disconnection as well as informing responses to local support services for OY.

机遇青年(OY)是指16至24岁、没有上学也没有工作的年轻人。研究表明, 青年人脱节对其福祉、社区和整个经济都有负面影响。然而, 现有文献忽略了系统性地导致美国青年人脱节的社会、人口和经济因素。本文探索了青年人脱节的相关特征及其在美国大陆不同地区的不同影响。利用2015年至2019年的5年美国社区调查公用微观数据样本数据, 本文发现OY比例较高的地区位于阳光地带(例如, 加利福尼亚州南部、亚利桑那州、新墨西哥州、得克萨斯州、路易斯安那州、阿拉巴马州和佐治亚州)。多尺度地理加权回归分析(MGWR)揭示了脱节的不同空间关系, 表明脱节因素在不同地理区域有不同的影响。本文探讨了种族、民族、能力、国籍、语言、收入和抚养子女状况对OY交叉性的潜在影响。这些结论, 突出了局地环境在产生和促进青年人脱节、响应局地OY服务中的作用。

Los jóvenes de oportunidad (OY) son jóvenes con edades comprendidas entre los 16 y los 24 años, que ni estudian ni trabajan. La investigación sugiere que la desconexión juvenil puede tener consecuencias negativas sobre el bienestar de los jóvenes, de sus comunidades y de la economía en general. No obstante, la literatura existente descuida los factores sociodemográficos y económicos subyacentes que contribuyen de manera sistemática a las causas de la desconexión de los jóvenes en los Estados Unidos. Este estudio pretende explorar las características asociadas con la desconexión de los jóvenes y sus efectos que varían espacialmente en diferentes regiones a través de los Estados Unidos contiguos. Usando información de la Muestra de Microdatos de Uso Público de la Encuesta sobre la Comunidad Americana, los resultados sugieren que las área que registran los porcentajes más altos de OY están localizadas en la región del Sunbelt (región Soleada), es decir California del Sur, Arizona, Nuevo México, Texas, Luisiana, Alabama y Georgia. Además, un análisis de regresión geográficamente ponderada (MGWR) a multiescala ilustró las relaciones que varían espacialmente con la desconexión, demostrando que los factores tienen efectos únicos en las distintas áreas geográficas. Se discuten el impacto potencial de la interseccionalidad para los OY por raza y etnicidad, capacidad, nacionalidad, idioma, ingreso y estatus de crianza. Estos resultados destacan la influencia de los contextos locales para crear y reforzar la desconexión de los jóvenes lo mismo que en la información sobre las respuestas a los servicios de apoyo local para los OY.

Key Words:

• multiscale geographically weighted regression
• opportunity youth
• structural inequity
• youth disconnection

关键词::

• 多尺度地理加权回归
• 机遇青年
• 结构性不平等
• 青年人脱节

Palabras clave:

• desconexión juvenil
• desigualdad estructural
• jóvenes con oportunidades
• regresión geográficamente ponderada a multiescala

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We compared the results from Moran’s I and those from Moran’s I for Empirical Bayes (EB) rates, the latter of which adjusted for potential variance instability that can be incurred by differing exposure population densities for rate/proportion variables. Because our exposure population does not assume extremely small values (the smallest youth population is 5,411), our dependent variable (OY) might not suffer variance instability commonly associated with rate/proportion variables. This was further corroborated by the identical results from the class Moran’s I and Moran’s I for EB tests (test statistic = 0.4 with pseudo p-value = 0.00001).

2 Note that our selection of the independent variables in the final model was not solely driven by the statistical tests within the OLS framework as the assumption of independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.) samples were likely to be violated in this spatial setting, which was also why spatial regression models were further adopted.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth Hatch

ELIZABETH HATCH is a Doctoral Candidate in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ 85004. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include workforce development and wellness interventions.

Chuyuan Wang

CHUYUAN WANG, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Planning at Towson University, Towson, MD 21252. E-mail: [email protected]. His research has been primarily focused on using geospatial technologies to study land use/land cover change, urban climate, and terrestrial ecosystems.

Wei Kang

WEI KANG, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76201. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include spatial statistics, spatial econometrics, housing, neighborhood change, and spatial data science.

Brajesh Karna

BRAJESH KARNA is a Senior Database Analyst at Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281. Email: [email protected]. His research interests include spatial analysis, natural language processing, machine learning, and semantic network analysis.

Natalie Sabinsky

NATALIE SABINSKY is a Community Director for Housing and Residence Life at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include Opportunity Youth community engagement and student affairs in the public higher education sector.

Kristin M. Ferguson

KRISTIN M. FERGUSON, Ph.D. is a Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ 85004. Email: [email protected]. Her research focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of employment interventions for homeless and opportunity youth that integrate employment and clinical services.