Sustenance of Space: The Inheritance of Neighborhood Disadvantage Across Three Generations

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 8. Neighborhood Change

Abstract

Theories of inequality that account for intergenerational processes of attainment have the potential to expand understandings of how well-being is maintained over time. Neighborhood scholars have followed suit and have begun to use innovative data and methodological techniques to address multigenerational neighborhood effects. We link neighborhood context across three-generations using restricted geo-coded data for respondents of the NLSY 1979 and NLSY Children and Young Adults cohorts. The results from multivariable logistic regression models suggest that exposure to adult neighborhood disadvantage in the grandparent and parent generations of the family increases the probability of adult exposure to neighborhood disadvantage for grandchildren. These results further suggest that the neighborhood contexts in which great-grandchildren grow up is related to the neighborhood contexts of their grandparents and great-grandparents. Moreover, these findings are robust to cousin fixed effects models that adjust for unobserved disadvantages that originate in the grandparent generation and cascade down to impact neighborhood and well-being outcomes of their descendants. The findings add to the nascent body of research that examines inequality through an intergenerational lens and to theory about the role that neighborhoods play in shaping well-being.

Authors

• Steven Elias Alvarado, Cornell University

• Alexandra C Cooperstock, Cornell University