Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
July 15, 2023
Summary:
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.
Published in
Journal of Urban Economics
Volume
Volume: 136:103571
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2023.103571
ISSN
941190
Subjects
Notes
Open Access
Under a Creative Commons license
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