Dynamics of Latino segregation, poverty, and unemployment, 1980–2010

Residential segregation plays a key role in shaping both economic incorporation and marginalization of Latinos in the United States. This study examines segregation’s relationship with two key economic outcomes of incorporation—poverty and unemployment—for Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. The study utilizes a multiyear, multi-city dataset of individual and metropolitan-level characteristics in the years 1980–2010 for eighty-eight US metropolitan areas to examine the relationship between segregation, poverty, and unemployment. We find that once individual characteristics are controlled for, segregation had a negative effect on outcomes for Puerto Rican unemployment, but not for Mexicans and Cubans, highlighting important differences in the economic experiences of the ancestry groups.