Abstract
This paper investigates acute, compounded, and persistent deprivation in a representative sample of Chicago adolescents transitioning to young adulthood. Our investigation, based on four waves of longitudinal data from 1995 to 2013, is motivated by three goals. First, we document the prevalence of individual and neighborhood poverty over time, especially among whites, blacks, and Latinos. Second, we explore compounded deprivation, describing the extent to which study participants are simultaneously exposed to individual and contextual forms of deprivation—including material deprivation (such as poverty) and social-organizational deprivation (for example, low collective efficacy)—for multiple phases of the life course from adolescence up to age thirty-two. Third, we isolate the characteristics that predict transitions out of compounded and persistent poverty. The results provide new evidence on the crosscutting adversities that were exacerbated by the Great Recession and on the deep connection of race to persistent and compounded deprivation in the transition to adulthood.
- Copyright © 2015 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Reproduction by the United States Government in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose. We thank Matthew Desmond, the RSF reviewers, and participants at the “Severe Deprivation in America” conference for helpful comments. This article was supported in part by a grant from the Hymen Milgrom Supporting Organization to the University of Chicago. Direct correspondence to: Kristin L. Perkins at kperkins{at}fas.harvard.edu, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138; and Robert J. Sampson at rsampson{at}wjh.harvard.edu, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138.
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