ABSTRACT
Scholarly interest in the degree to which neighbourhood conditions affect the life chances of children, youth and adults has skyrocketed over the last 15 years, as evidenced by the upsurge of research papers, special issues of scholarly journals and reviews of the literature. 1 Although there seems to be an emerging consensus in the US that neighbourhood indicators typically do have non-trivial relationships with a range of outcomes related to childhood cognitive development, academic achievement and credential attainment, teen fertility and labour market consequences as adults, there remains debate about which precise indicators of neighbourhood conditions are the most predictive. There is even less consensus in Western European scholarship that any types of neighbourhood effects are prominent, let alone which indicator is most powerful (cf. Andersen, 2003; Kearns, 2002; Musterd, 2002; Musterd et al., 2003; Musterd ampentity Andersson, 2005, 2006; Ostendorf et al., 2001; Van der Klaauw ampentity Van Ours, 2003).
