HOUSING SEGREGATION IN THE SCHOOL AGE POPULATION AND THE LINK BETWEEN HOUSING AND SCHOOL SEGREGATION: A ST. LOUIS CASE STUDY

The age distributions of the black and white populations vary, as do the ways in which blacks and whites of differing ages are distributed geographically in metropolitan areas. The nature of these differences is such that, in racially mixed neighborhoods, black families with children are often mixed with childless or elderly white adults. For this reason, it is hypothesized that the school-age (5 to 17 years of age) population is more residentially segregated by race than is the total population. To test this hypothesis, segregation indices based on census tract data were computed for the St. Louis SMSA for 1980, for the total population and the school-age population. This analysis confirmed that the school-age population was somewhat more segregated than the total population. The implications of this finding for the problem of school segregation are discussed, as is the interrelationship between housing segregation and school segregation.