A Spatial Analysis of Male and Female Unemployment in the USA

An analysis of male and female unemployment in the U.S. explores how gender affects spatial variation in unemployment. The effects of spatially-unlagged and spatially-lagged unemployment rates on the likelihood that individual men and women are unemployed are also explored. Using a recent tabulation of microdata from the American Community Survey, multilevel models of male and female unemployment are fit. Results indicate that age and occupation at the individual-level and a right-to-work dummy at the PUMA-level are the variables that best distinguish unemployed men and women. Results also indicate that unemployment for men is more clustered in space than unemployment for women. Finally, results indicate that the vast majority of the variation in unemployment for individuals in the U.S. is attributable to the personal characteristics of unemployed men and women, not the locational characteristics of high-unemployment places. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the latter result.