Urban Labor Markets and Job Opportunity

Cities have become the arena where three fundamental mismatches in labour markets are being played out: the skill mismatch between the skills of young workers emerging from urban school systems and the skill requirements for high paying jobs in the growth sectors of the economy; the spatial mismatch between unemployed workers, concentrated in the inner city, and job generation that is taking place primarily in newer suburbs; and the social mismatch between employers unwilling to take risks in hiring and city youth who from a young age are part of the high-risk worlds of drugs and crime. This volume investigates the structural changes that have produced these mismatches in the urban labour market, and examines the way different vehicles for job mobility are now functioning. Included are papers by Richard Freeman on the effects of youths' criminal experience and incarceration on long-term earnings; Gary Orfield on the disintegration of big-city schools and the implications for job preparation; Timothy Bates, Constance Dunham, Roger Waldinger, and Michael White on the experience different immigrant groups have had with job and earnings advancement and small business start-ups.