The long shadow of local decline: birthplace economic adversity and long-term individual outcomes in the UK

McNeil, Andrew ORCID: 0000-0003-0791-9143, Luca, Davide and Lee, Neil ORCID: 0000-0002-4138-7163 (2023) The long shadow of local decline: birthplace economic adversity and long-term individual outcomes in the UK. Journal of Urban Economics, 136. ISSN 0094-1190

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Abstract

Does growing up in a high-economic adversity area matter for individual economic, cultural, and political views? Despite a significant focus upon the effect of birthplace on economic outcomes, there is less evidence on how local economic conditions at birth shape individual attitudes over the long-term. This paper links the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from English and Welsh respondents with historic localised information on unemployment, our measure of economic adversity. Our results, which control for composition effects, family background, and sorting of people across places, show that being born into a high-unemployment Local Authority has a significant, long-term impact on individuals. Birthplace matters beyond economic outcomes, as being born into a Local Authority of high unemployment makes individuals believe in more government intervention in jobs, less progressive on gender issues, and less likely to support the Conservative Party.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Geography & Environment
Subjects:	J Political Science H Social Sciences
Date Deposited:	07 Jun 2023 09:36
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2024 18:15
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/119354

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