Neighbourhood effects on young people's future living conditions: Longitudinal findings from Sweden

Abstract

Using extensive longitudinal data for three Swedish birth cohorts born in the late 1970s, this study asked whether the social characteristics of the neighbourhood affect future outcomes that are important for their living conditions (labour-market participation, economic hardship and criminality). To assist decision-making about the balance between area-targeted policies and wider form of social interventions at the individual level, this study also assessed whether the estimated impact of neighbourhood context has any bearing on the effect of preventive interventions directed at distressed neighbourhoods. The overall findings suggest that there is no clear evidence that the impact of neighbourhood varies sufficiently between the different types of neighbourhoods when selection and other confounding factors have been taken into consideration. It is concluded that the estimated effect of neighbourhood on youth development does not underpin area-targeted policies directed at distressed neighbourhoods. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.