Neighbourhood and family effects on employment

This report investigates the effects of community influences on the chances of employment, the amount of employment, and the quality of employment. It uses the largest dataset ever brought to bear on this topic in Australia, the pooled set of 13 IsssA surveys between 1984-2001 (IsssA-Pool) with over 26,000 cases. Not every variable is available in every year; each analysis uses as many of the cases as are available. Methods of analysis include logistic regression, OLS regression, and structural equation modeling. Our modeling strategy follows a biographical logic, familiar from path analyses of status attainment, beginning with enduring consequences of the family of origin and then assessing the consequences of current family and community situation. These effects we report are estimated from multivariate models, so each effect described is the independent contribution of that variable, holding all the other variables in the model constant. Each finding in this summary should be understood to be qualified by the phrase “according to our models”. In theory, the effects could change were other causal variables to be entered into the model