Search Results

Author: South, Scott J.
Resulting in 12 citations.
1. Johnson, Kecia
Pais, Jeremy
South, Scott J.
Minority Population Concentration and Earnings: Evidence From Fixed-Effects Models
Social Forces, 91,1 (September 2012): 181-208.
Also: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_forces/v091/91.1.johnson.html
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Keyword(s): Earnings; Ethnic Differences; Migration; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Racial Differences; Residential Segregation

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Consistent with the hypothesis that heightened visibility and competition lead to greater economic discrimination against minorities, countless studies have observed a negative association between minority population concentration and minority socioeconomic attainment. But minorities who reside in areas with high minority concentration are likely to differ from minorities who reside in areas with few minorities on unobserved characteristics related to economic attainment. Thus, this association may be a product of differential skills, behaviors and networks acquired during childhood or of selective migration. Applying fixed-effects models to a quarter century of panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we find that for Blacks and Latinos the inverse association between minority population concentration and earnings is eliminated when unobserved person-specific characteristics are controlled. The findings suggest that the negative association between Black population size and Blacks’ earnings is driven largely by the selection of high-earning Blacks into labor markets with relatively small Black populations. Most of the association between Latino population concentration and earnings is attributable to the level of Latino population concentration experienced during childhood.
Bibliography Citation
Johnson, Kecia, Jeremy Pais and Scott J. South. "Minority Population Concentration and Earnings: Evidence From Fixed-Effects Models." Social Forces, 91,1 (September 2012): 181-208.
2. Lloyd, Kim Marie
South, Scott J.
Contextual Influences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage
Working Paper, Albany, NY: Department of Sociology, State University of New York - Albany, June 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Sociology, State University of New York - Albany
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Earnings; Event History; Home Ownership; Marriage; Racial Differences; Socioeconomic Factors

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

While recent theories of woman's marital entry have emphasized the influence of local marriage market characteristics, few studies have examined the effects of these and other contextual variables on men's transition to marriage. The present analysis begins to fill this gap in the literature by investigating the social context in which men make marital decisions. Competing theories of marriage formation are evaluated by merging several contextual variables, primarily marriage market characteristics from the 1980 Census, with men's marital histories available in the 1979 through 1984 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Discrete-time event history models reveal that, net of conventional individual-level predictors, a shortage of prospective partners in the local marriage market impedes white men's transition to first marriage. Women's aggregate economic independence, measured in terms of the proportion of females in the local marriage market who are employed andthe size of average AFDC payments, also diminish men's marriage propensities. Although annual earnings and home ownership facilitate men's marital transitions, racial differences in socioeconomic and marriage market characteristics account for relatively little of the substantial racial difference in marriage.
Bibliography Citation
Lloyd, Kim Marie and Scott J. South. "Contextual Influences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage." Working Paper, Albany, NY: Department of Sociology, State University of New York - Albany, June 1994.
3. Lloyd, Kim Marie
South, Scott J.
Contextual Influences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage
Social Forces 74,3 (March 1996): 1097-1119.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2580394
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Economics of Gender; Event History; Marriage; Modeling; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Competing theories of marriage formation are evaluated by merging several contextual variables, primarily marriage market characteristics from the 1980 census, with men's marital histories observed between 1979 and 1984 in the National Longitudinal Surrey of Youth. Discrete-time event history models reveal that, net of conventional individual level predictors. A shortage of prospective partners in the local marriage market impedes white men's transition to first marriage. Women's aggregate economic independence, measured in terms of the proportion of females in the local marriage market who are employed and in terms of the size of average AFDC payments, also diminishes men's marriage propensities. Although earnings and home ownership facilitate men's marital transitions, racial differences in socioeconomic and marriage market characteristics account for relatively little of the substantial racial difference in marriage rates.
Bibliography Citation
Lloyd, Kim Marie and Scott J. South. "Contextual Influences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage." Social Forces 74,3 (March 1996): 1097-1119.
4. Lloyd, Kim Marie
South, Scott J.
Spousal Alternatives and Marital Dissolution
Presented: Miami, FL, Population Association of America Meetings, May 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Divorce; Geocoded Data; Hispanics; Marital Disruption; Marital Dissolution; Marital Stability; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH); Racial Differences; Remarriage

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We draw on three different data sources to explore the effects of the quantity and quality of potential remarriage partners available in the local marriage market on the risk of marital dissolution. First, data from the National Survey of Families and Households are used to demonstrate that, among recently-divorced couples, a substantial percentage of husbands and wives had been romantically involved with someone prior to divorcing. Then, microlevel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are merged with aggregated Public Use Microdata from the U.S. census to examine directly the impact of marriage market characteristics and other contextual variables on the risk of disruption, net of conventional, individual-level predictors of divorce. Proportional hazards regression models reveal that, among non Hispanic whites, the risk of dissolution is highest where either wives or husbands encounter abundant alternatives to their current spouse. The labor forces participatio n rate of unmarried women and the rate of geographic mobility in the local marriage market also decrease marital stability. In general, the results suggest that many persons continue the marital search even while married, and that the distribution of spousal alternatives embedded in the social structure influences significantly the risk of marital dissolution.
Bibliography Citation
Lloyd, Kim Marie and Scott J. South. "Spousal Alternatives and Marital Dissolution." Presented: Miami, FL, Population Association of America Meetings, May 1994.
5. Moloney, Katherine L.
South, Scott J.
Ethnic Density and Obesity: Evidence from Fixed-effects Models
Health and Place 31 (January 2015): 199-207.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829214001853
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Data Linkage (also see Record Linkage); Ethnic Differences; Gender Differences; Geocoded Data; Height; Height, Height-Weight Ratios; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Obesity; Racial Differences; Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA); Weight

We use data from the 1980 to 2004 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort to examine the association between the ethnic density of metropolitan areas and obesity among U.S. blacks and Latinos. Although minority groups' obesity rates tend to be higher in metropolitan areas containing many co-ethnics, controlling for other areal characteristics and unobserved time-constant confounders via fixed-effects models dramatically alters this association. In the fixed-effects models, higher levels of co-ethnic density are inversely associated with black males' obesity risk and unrelated to the obesity risk of black females, Latinas, and Latino males. For most groups, marrying and having children increases the risk of obesity.
Bibliography Citation
Moloney, Katherine L. and Scott J. South. "Ethnic Density and Obesity: Evidence from Fixed-effects Models." Health and Place 31 (January 2015): 199-207.
6. South, Scott J.
Do You Need to Shop Around? Age at Marriage, Spousal Alternatives, and Marital Dissolution
Journal of Family Issues 16,4 (July 1995): 432-449.
Also: http://jfi.sagepub.com/content/16/4/432.abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Attitudes; Behavior; Demography; Divorce; Educational Attainment; Marital Dissolution; Marital Satisfaction/Quality; Marriage

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Hypothesized that, relative to people who marry later in life, persons who marry at comparatively young ages will be especially susceptible to divorce when confronted with abundant alternatives to their current spouse. Data on 2,586 Ss, first interviewed in 1979 between the ages of 14-22 years, were obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of the Labor Market Experience of Youth and the Public Use Microdata Samples; 22% of Ss had experienced a marital dissolution. A discrete-time event-history analysis approach was used. Results show that local marriage markets containing favorable remarriage prospects for wives should increase the risk of divorce, as should a marriage market containing relatively favorable remarriage prospects for husbands and thus unfavorable prospects for wives. Some of the effect of age at marriage on marital dissolution is attributable to the detrimental impact of early marriage on educational attainment. (PsycINFO Database Copyright 1996 American Psychological Assn, all rights reserved)
Bibliography Citation
South, Scott J. "Do You Need to Shop Around? Age at Marriage, Spousal Alternatives, and Marital Dissolution." Journal of Family Issues 16,4 (July 1995): 432-449.
7. South, Scott J.
Lloyd, Kim Marie
Spousal Alternatives and Marital Dissolution
American Sociological Review 60,1 (February 1995): 21-35.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2096343
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Divorce; Family Structure; Geocoded Data; Geographical Variation; Labor Force Participation; Marital Disruption; Marital Dissolution; Mobility; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH); Sociability/Socialization/Social Interaction

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Data from the National Survey of Families and Households demonstrate that a substantial percentage of recently divorced men and women had been romantically involved with someone other than their spouse before divorce. Merging microlevel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth with aggregated Public Use Microdata from the 1980 US Census, the authors examine the impact of marriage market characteristics and other variables on the non-Hispanic Whites, the risk is highest where there is an abundance of spousal alternatives, increased labor force participation among unmarried women, and high geographic mobility rates in the local area. Results suggest that many persons remain open to alternative relationships even while married. (PsycINFO Database Copyright 1995 American Psychological Association, all rights reserved)
Bibliography Citation
South, Scott J. and Kim Marie Lloyd. "Spousal Alternatives and Marital Dissolution." American Sociological Review 60,1 (February 1995): 21-35.
8. South, Scott J.
Spitze, Glenna D.
Determinants of Divorce over the Marital Life Course
American Sociological Review 51,4 (August 1986): 583-590.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095590
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Young Women
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Divorce; Educational Attainment; Life Course; Marital Stability; Racial Differences; Urbanization/Urban Living; Women

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Data from the Young and Mature Women samples of the NLS (number of cases = 8,158) are used to examine how the determinants of divorce (and separation) vary by the duration of marriage. In general, little evidence is found that the strength of previously identified predictors of divorce varies by marital duration. Variables such as race, wife's labor force participation, husband's employment, and urban residence seem to influence the probability of divorce, irrespective of the stage in the marital life course. The principal exception to this finding is the effect of wife's education, which appears to decrease the probability of divorce at early marital durations but to increase it at later durations. There is also suggestive evidence that the effects of home ownership and age at marriage may vary by marital duration. [Sociological Abstracts, Inc.]
Bibliography Citation
South, Scott J. and Glenna D. Spitze. "Determinants of Divorce over the Marital Life Course." American Sociological Review 51,4 (August 1986): 583-590.
9. Spitze, Glenna D.
South, Scott J.
Women's Employment, Time Expenditure and Divorce
Journal of Family Issues 6 (1985): 307-239
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Young Women
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Divorce; Earnings, Wives; Household Demand; Husbands, Attitudes; Marital Instability; Work Hours/Schedule

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Past research on the relationship between wives' employment and divorce has focused on two types of explanations, those positing change motives regarding divorce and those suggesting changed opportunities. Without discounting totally the path from income to opportunity, we focus here on a somewhat neglected alternative, that leading from time constraints to changed motives toward maintaining a marriage. We argue that time spent by the wife working outside the home impedes the completion of tasks necessary to the maintenance of the household, and hence increases the probability of divorce. Using data from the Young and Mature Women samples of the NLS, we find that among employed women, hours worked has a greater impact on marital dissolution than do various measures of wife's earnings. In partial support of our hypotheses, the relationship between wife's hours worked and the probability of divorce is strongest for middle income families and families in which the husband disapproves of his wife's employment.
Bibliography Citation
Spitze, Glenna D. and Scott J. South. "Women's Employment, Time Expenditure and Divorce." Journal of Family Issues 6 (1985): 307-239.
10. Vogel, Matt
South, Scott J.
Spatial Dimensions of the Effect of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Delinquency
Criminology 54,3 (August 2016): 434-458.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12110/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: American Society of Criminology
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Geocoded Data; Neighborhood Effects; Socioeconomic Factors

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Research examining the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and adolescent offending typically examines only the influence of residential neighborhoods. This strategy may be problematic as 1) neighborhoods are rarely spatially independent of each other and 2) adolescents spend an appreciable portion of their time engaged in activities outside of their immediate neighborhood. Therefore, characteristics of neighborhoods outside of, but geographically proximate to, residential neighborhoods may affect adolescents' propensity to engage in delinquent behavior. We append a spatially lagged, distance-weighted measure of socioeconomic disadvantage in "extralocal" neighborhoods to the individual records of respondents participating in the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (N = 6,491). Results from negative binomial regression analyses indicate that the level of socioeconomic disadvantage in extralocal neighborhoods is inversely associated with youth offending, as theories of relative deprivation, structured opportunity, and routine activities would predict, and that the magnitude of this effect rivals that of the level of disadvantage in youths' own residential neighborhoods. Moreover, socioeconomic disadvantage in extralocal neighborhoods suppresses the criminogenic influence of socioeconomic disadvantage in youths' own neighborhoods, revealing stronger effects of local neighborhood disadvantage than would otherwise be observed.
Bibliography Citation
Vogel, Matt and Scott J. South. "Spatial Dimensions of the Effect of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Delinquency." Criminology 54,3 (August 2016): 434-458.
11. Yang, Tse-Chuan
South, Scott J.
Neighborhood Effects on Body Mass: Temporal and Spatial Dimensions
Social Science and Medicine 217 (November 2018): 45-54.
Also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953618305513
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): American Community Survey; Body Mass Index (BMI); Census of Population; Geocoded Data; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Neighborhood Effects; Obesity

Research examining the effects of neighborhood characteristics on obesity and excess body weight has generally neglected the influence of both life-course exposure and geographically-proximate communities. Using data on 9357 respondents to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort, in conjunction with tract-level data from the 1980-2010 U.S. censuses, this study examines how black, Hispanic, and white individuals' cumulative exposure to varying levels of neighborhood poverty and co-ethnic density from their mid-teens through mid-adulthood, as well as the levels of poverty and co-ethnic density in nearby, or "extralocal," neighborhoods, are associated with their body mass index (BMI). Fixed-effect regression models show that, among Hispanics and whites, cumulative exposure to co-ethnic neighbors is a stronger positive predictor of BMI than the co-ethnic density of the immediate, point-in-time neighborhood. Among whites, cumulative exposure to neighborhood poverty is a stronger positive predictor of BMI than is the poverty rate of the current neighborhood of residence. And among both blacks and whites, the distance-weighted poverty rate of extralocal neighborhoods is significantly and inversely related to BMI, suggesting that relative affluence in nearby neighborhoods engenders relative deprivation among residents of the focal neighborhood, leading to increased BMI. Overall, the results suggest that greater attention to both the temporal and spatial dimensions of neighborhood effects has the potential to enhance our understanding of how neighborhoods affect obesity and related health outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Yang, Tse-Chuan and Scott J. South. "Neighborhood Effects on Body Mass: Temporal and Spatial Dimensions." Social Science and Medicine 217 (November 2018): 45-54.
12. Yang, Tse-Chuan
South, Scott J.
Neighborhood Poverty and Physical Health at Midlife: The Role of Life-Course Exposure
Journal of Urban Health 97,4 (August 2020): 486-501.
Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-020-00444-8
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Geocoded Data; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Life Course; Neighborhood Effects; Poverty

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Studies of the effect of neighborhood poverty on health are dominated by research designs that measure neighborhood poverty at a single point in time, ignoring the potential influence of exposure to neighborhood poverty over the life course. Applying latent class analysis to restricted residential history data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort, we identify four trajectories of life-course exposure to high-poverty neighborhoods between adolescence and midlife and then examine how these groups differ in their physical health conditions (SF-12 score) and self-rated health at around age 40. Linear and logistic regression analyses show that life-course exposure to high-poverty neighborhoods is a stronger predictor of midlife physical health than are point-in-time measures of neighborhood poverty observed during either adolescence or midlife. Our findings suggest that a life-course approach can enhance our understanding of how neighborhood poverty affects physical health.
Bibliography Citation
Yang, Tse-Chuan and Scott J. South. "Neighborhood Poverty and Physical Health at Midlife: The Role of Life-Course Exposure." Journal of Urban Health 97,4 (August 2020): 486-501.