Black Males Left Behind: The Effects of Exposure to Crack Era Violence on Intergenerational Mobility

• In Event: Intergenerational Consequences of Incarceration and Violence: Racial Disparities and Family Mobility

Abstract

This paper analyzes how exposure to violence affects upward mobility. To identify a causal relationship, we exploit the variation in community exposure to the crack epidemic during the 1980s. Following Evans et al. (2020), we confirm that emerging crack markets led to an increase in violence, disproportionately impacting younger Black males. Our results indicate that Black males born between 1978 and 1983 who experienced high levels of violence during their youth exhibit a reduction in upward mobility. While we observe a similar reduction for White males, these findings are not statistically significant. We estimate results for various parent income distribution percentiles according to the national income distribution. Therefore, we compare people’s economic mobility to the average of those who were in their birth cohort with the same parent income distribution percentile during childhood. Our 2SLS estimates are larger in magnitude than OLS estimates, suggesting a substantial causal effect on intergenerational mobility. Additionally, we find that exposure to violence has no impact on male incarceration or female mobility for both races, but it does increase teenage pregnancy among Black females while decreasing it among White females. We find that exposure to violence reduces the likelihood of marriage across the parental income distribution for both males and females, regardless of race; however, only Black males and females, as well as White males and females from the top of the parental income distribution, experience declines in household mobility. We find no overall effects from the exposure to violence on high school completion rates for both sexes, though there is a weaker significance in a decline in high school completion for Black males with parents in the 1st percentile income distribution, along with White females with parents in the 50th and 75th percentiles. Lastly, we find strong negative impacts on a male’s ability to earn positive earnings due to exposure to violence, whereas we see no effects on female earnings.

Author

• Andrenay Harris, Texas A&M University
  Presenting Author