Girls in the 'Hood: How Safety Affects the Life Chances of Low-Income Girls

Adolescents growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods are at risk for a range of negative outcomes. Girls face specific threats because of their gender-omnipresent harassment, pressure for early sexual initiation, pervasive intimate partner violence, and high risk of sexual assault. This article uses mixed-methods data from the Three-City Study of Moving to Opportunity (MTO) to explore how moving to lower-poverty neighborhoods may have influenced adolescent girls' life chances. MTO families moved to neighborhoods with lower levels of violent crime overall, but MTO girls also experienced a substantial reduction in the "female fear," Gordon and Riger's term for the fear of sexual harassment, coercion, and rape. The authors argue that this change is a plausible explanation for the notable improvements in MTO girls' well-being.