The spatial mismatch hypothesis suggests that the movement of jobs from central cities to suburbs negatively affects blacks' employment both absolutely and relative to whites. In this paper, data are used from the 1984 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the 1972 and 1982 US Census of Industries to examine the effect of growth in metropolitan job decentralisation on young males' jobless incidence and duration. Overall, growth in job decentralisation is found to affect negatively young black and Latino males' jobless incidence and duration. In addition, the metropolitan unemployment rate is found to affect negatively young black males' jobless incidence and durations only. Thus, the combination of full employment policies with policies to alter the distribution of jobs in metropolitan areas in favour of the central city will do more to improve young black and Latino males' labour market position than either approach by itself.
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