Industrial Restructuring and Violence: The Link between Entry-Level Jobs, Economic Deprivation, and Black and White Homicide

Although low-skill, entry-level employment has facilitated the social mobility of central city populations, evidence confirms that these once plentiful jobs are disappearing. This shift in the industrial structure of central cities has been especially detrimental to the economic and social well-being of low-skill city residents and may be linked to the rates of violence in urban communities. Using racially disaggregated data from the census and the Uniform Crime Reports for central cities in 1970 and 1990, we examine the direct and indirect relationship between the industrial structure of central cities and the rates of homicide. The findings reveal that a decline in the access to low-skill jobs increases violence indirectly by first increasing economic deprivation. We model these relationships for racially disaggregated populations and find that the effects are similar for blacks and whites. The analysis supports a macro-social link between violence and urban industrial restructuring in central cities.