Growing up in bad neighborhoods has a 'devastating' impact

University of Michigan

Oct. 4, 2011

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Growing up in a poor neighborhood significantly reduces the chances that a child will graduate from high school, according to a study published in the current (October) issue of the American Sociological Review. And the longer a child lives in that kind of neighborhood, the more harmful the impact.

The study by sociologists Geoffrey Wodtke and David Harding of the University of Michigan and Felix Elwert of the University of Wisconsin is the first to capture the cumulative impact of growing up in America's most disadvantaged neighborhoods on a key educational outcome: high school graduation.

"Compared to growing up in affluent neighborhoods, growing up in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and unemployment reduces the chances of high school graduation from 96 percent to 76 percent for black children," said Wodtke, a doctoral student who works with Harding at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "The impact on white children is also harmful, but not as large, reducing their chances of graduating from 95 percent to 87 percent."

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