Kerstin Ostermann

Sociological Methods & Research

(Single-authored) 

Studying the relationship between neighborhoods and individual-level outcomes such as crime has a long history in the social sciences. As local processes such as gentrification constantly change neighborhoods’ composition and spatial expansion, time-constant one-size-fits-all neighborhood measures fail to capture important local dynamics. This paper presents a flexible and data-driven approach for efficiently estimating overlapping and arbitrarily shaped neighborhoods with time-dynamic boundaries. Constructed in a two-stage clustering design, the first stage identifies homogeneous groups within a city, while the second stage clusters homogeneous groups by spatial proximity. In an analysis of 86 million person-year observations from 76 German cities, the paper shows that a larger spatial expansion of neighborhoods with a high socioeconomic status negatively correlates with city crime cases, while higher neighborhood fragmentation and heterogeneity correlate positively with crime rates. The findings stress the importance of flexible neighborhood estimation techniques and the necessity to view neighborhoods as non-constant entities. By modeling contexts as such agentic players, the two-staged algorithm depicts a novel and transparent tool to consider the spatial embeddedness of individuals, firms, or regions in sociological research.

Preprint available

(with S Bähr) 

While the fundamental link between place and inequality is well investigated, causal studies on neighborhood effects are limited. Using nationwide administrative data from Germany and a quasi-experimental identification approach, we investigate how employed network ties and role models in the residential neighborhood shape individual-level employment. In exploiting variation over time, within cities and between 1x1 kilometer grid cells, we provide a causal estimate of gendered neighborhood employment effects on refugee women's employment probability. Results support job referral effects of full-time employed female neighbors, which is most direct for refugees in neighborhoods with high shares of employed native women (see Figure above). Analyses of locally prevalent female work norms show a positive one-off effect of higher part-time employment shares of native neighbors, indicating that neighbors serve as role models only before other structures are settled. In analyzing neighborhood effects by sex and nationality, our study reveals that gendered neighborhood ties can provide valuable resources for disadvantaged social groups in the labor market. Hence, the study stresses the necessity to break down dichotomies such as gender and ethnicity when not only explaining but also finding alternative pathways for circumventing combined hurdles of intersectionality.