A study of the geographic distribution of U.S. unemployment takes up the challenge to explore regional variation in unemployment by gender. To do so, the differential effects of local and regional unemployment on the likelihood that individual women and men are unemployed and differences in the underlying patterns of unemployment by gender are explored. Using a unique tabulation of micro data for labor market areas, two series of multilevel models for women and men are fit. The multilevel model results suggest that regional variation in unemployment is more evident for men than for women and, contrary to the empirical evidence, the underlying pattern of unemployment for men is more clustered than for women. The article concludes by discussing the policy implications of the finding that most of the variation in labor market outcomes for both women and men is attributable to individual-level rather than labor market area-level characteristics.
Alonso-Villa, O., & Del Rio, C. (2008). Geographical concentration of unemployment: A male-female comparison in Spain. Regional Studies, 42, 401-412.
2.
American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association. ( 1990). Cost of living index. Louisville, KY: Author.
3.
Anselin, L. ( 1995). Local indicators of spatial association-LISA. Geographical Analysis, 27, 93-115.
4.
Badinger, H., & Url, T. ( 2002). Determinants of regional unemployment: Some evidence from Austria. Regional Studies, 36, 977-988.
5.
Bartik, T. ( 1993). Who benefits from local job growth: Migrants or the original residents? Regional Studies, 27, 297-311.
6.
Bluestone, B., & Harrison, B. ( 1982). The deindustrialization of America. New York, NY: Basic Books.
7.
Bolton, R. ( 1992). "Place prosperity" vs. "people prosperity" revisited: An old issue with a new angle. Urban Studies, 29, 185-203.
8.
Bullen, N., Jones, K., & Duncan, C. ( 1997). Modelling complexity: Analyzing between-individual and between-place variation-a multilevel tutorial. Environment and Planning A, 29, 585-609.
9.
Cracolici, M., Cuffaro, M., & Nijkamp, P. ( 2007). Geographical distribution of unemployment: An analysis of provincial differences in Italy. Growth and Change, 38, 649-670.
10.
Crane, R., & Manville, M. ( 2008). People or place? Revisiting the who versus the where of urban development. Land Lines, 20, 2-7.
11.
Duncan, C., & Jones, K. ( 2000). Using multilevel models to model heterogeneity: Potential and pitfalls. Geographical Analysis, 32, 279-305.
12.
Gelman, A. ( 2006). Multilevel (hierarchical) modeling: What it can and cannot do. Brookings Technometrics, 48, 432-435.
13.
Glaeser, E. ( 2005). Should the government rebuild New Orleans, or just give residents checks? The Economist’s Voice, 2, 1-6.
14.
Gould, M., & Fieldhouse, E. (1997). Using the 1991 census SAR in a multilevel analysis of male unemployment. Environment and Planning A, 29, 611-628.
15.
Greenwood, M., Hunt, G., Rickman, D., & Treyz, G. ( 1991). Migration, regional equilibrium and the estimation of compensating differentials. American Economic Review, 81, 1382-1390.
16.
Hall, R. ( 1970). Why is the unemployment rate so high at full employment ? Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 3, 369-402.
17.
Hanson, S., & Pratt, G. ( 1992). Dynamic dependencies: A geographic investigation of local labor markets. Economic Geography, 68, 373-405.
18.
Harris, J., & Todaro, M. ( 1970). Migration, unemployment and development: A two-sector analysis. American Economic Review, 60, 126-142.
19.
Hosmer, D., & Lemeshow, S. ( 2000). Applied logistic regression. New York, NY: Wiley.
20.
Khattab, N. ( 2006). Ethnic and regional determinants of unemployment in the Israeli labour market: A multilevel model. Regional Studies , 40, 93-105.
21.
Lopez-Bazo, E., Del Barrio, T., & Artis, M. ( 2005). Geographical distribution of unemployment in Spain. Regional Studies, 39, 305-318.
22.
Markusen, A. ( 2007). Written statement for the record, testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.
23.
Marston, S. ( 1985). Two views of the geographic distribution of unemployment . Quarterly Journal of Economics, 100, 57-79.
24.
Miles, R. ( 2002). Employment and unemployment in Jordan: The importance of the gender system. World Development, 30, 413-427.
25.
Mohanty, M. ( 1998). Do US employers discriminate against females when hiring their employees? Applied Economics, 30, 1471-1482.
26.
Molho, I. ( 1995). Spatial autocorrelation inBritish unemployment. Journal of Regional Science, 35, 641-658.
27.
Moran, P. ( 1950). Notes on continuous stochastic phenomena. Biometrika, 37, 17-23.
28.
Morrison, P. ( 1990). Segmentation theory applied to local, regional and spatial labour markets. Progress in Human Geography, 14, 488-528.
29.
Partridge, M., & Rickman, D. ( 1997). The dispersion of US state unemployment rates: The role of market and non-market equilibrium factors. Regional Studies , 31, 593-606.
30.
Primo, D., Jacobsmeier, M., & Milyo, J. ( 2007). Estimating the impact of state policies and institutions with mixed-level data. State Politics and Policy Quarterly , 7, 446-459.
31.
Raudenbush, S., & Bryk, A. ( 2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE .
32.
Reza, A. ( 1978). Geographical differences in earnings and unemployment rates. Review of Economics and Statistics, 60, 201-208.
33.
Savageau, D., & Boyer, R. ( 1993). Places rated almanac: Your guide to finding the best places to live in North America. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
34.
Simpson, W. ( 1983). On the appropriate spatial unit for labour market analysis and policy design. Urban Studies, 20, 487-489.
35.
Snijders, T., & Bosker, R. ( 1999). Multilevel analysis: An introduction to basic and advanced multilevel modeling. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
36.
The state of economic development: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, 110th Congress, 1st Sess, 49 (2007) (testimony of Ann Markusen).
37.
Tolbert, C., Beggs, J., & Boudreaux, G. ( 1995). PUMS-L data and associated files: CD-ROM edition [ machine-readable data files]. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Population Data Center, Louisiana State University.
38.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2009). Regional and state employment and unemployment summary. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm
39.
U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2002). Natural amenities scale. Retrieved from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/NaturalAmenities/
40.
U.S. Department of Commerce. (2002). Local area personal income. Retrieved from http://www.bea.gov/
41.
U.S. Department of Labor. (2006). Local area unemployment statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/lau/home.htm
42.
Vedder, R., & Gallaway, L. ( 1996). Spatial variations in U.S. unemployment. Journal of Labor Research, 17, 445-461.
43.
Winnick, L. ( 1966). Place prosperity vs. people prosperity: Welfare considerations in the geographic redistribution of economic activity. In G. James & S. Burns (Eds.), Essays in urban land economics in honor of the sixty-fifth birthday of Leo Grebler (pp. 273-283). Los Angeles : Real Estate Research Program, University of California at Los Angeles.
