Local Labor-Market Opportunity and Adolescent Delinquency

In this article; we extend the literature on adolescent delinquency by offering a theoretical framework that integrates insightsfrom labor-market and stratification research on the one hand and microlevelfamily and criminological research on the other. Analyses drawffrom local labor-market data and nationally representative longitudinal survey data on adolescents and employ techniques that take into account clustering within hierarchical structures. Findings suggest strong effects of low-wage service-sector concentration and unemployment on the likelihood of both fighting and drug use among adolescents. Consistent with our emphasis on potential mediatingprocesses, wefind that these effects are partially produced through the patterning offamily income, family intactness, and adolescent attachment to parents and school. An interestingfinding is that low-wage service-sector size and unemployment effects on adolescent delinquency persist even with potential mediators controlled. We conclude by discussing thesepersistent effects and their implications. Sociological research has traditionally been interested in the issue of urban transition and growth and its consequences for a variety of social problems, including alienation, community disorganization, delinquency, and violence (Park, Burgess & McKenzie 1928; Shaw & McKay 1942; Wirth 1938). Not surprisingly, this focus garnered considerable attention in the 1950s and 1960s as urban areas began to face economic restructuring and suburbanization - trends that continue

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