Neighbourhood poverty, work commitment and unemployment in early adulthood

A longitudinal study into the moderating effect of personality

Report (2015)
Department
OTB (Architecture and the Built Environment) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2015 The Author(s)
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Published Date

11-08-2015

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Source:

OTB Working papers 2015-03

Faculty

Architecture and The Built Environment

Department

OTB

Abstract

We studied how personality moderates the effect of neighbourhood disadvantage on work commitment and unemployment in early adulthood. Using a personality typolo-gy of resilients, overcontrollers, and undercontrollers, we hypothesised that the association between neighbourhood poverty and both work commitment and unemployment would be stronger for overcontrollers and undercontrollers than for resilients. We used longitudinal data (N=249) to test whether the length of exposure to neighbourhood poverty between age 16 and 21 predicts work commitment and unemployment at age 25. In line with our hypothesis, the findings showed that longer exposure is related to weaker work commitment among undercontrollers and overcontrollers and to higher unemployment among undercontrollers. Resilients’ work commitment and unemployment were not predicted by neighbourhood poverty.