Community Lost? Changes and Stratification in Perceived Neighborhood Social Cohesion among Families with Children

Neighborhood social cohesion is strongly associated with health and well-being, especially among families children. However, there a widespread perception in the media, policy circles, prominent research traditions that neighborhood has decreased recent decades for United States as whole certain subpopulations. Unfortunately, empirical evidence such trends thin. In this study, we use data on children from two studies, Survey of Income Program Participation Fragile Families Child Wellbeing Study, to explore how individual- neighborhood-level characteristics pattern disparities experience cohesion. Counter popular perceptions, our results show increases over decades, at least reveal persistent by individual characteristics.