ON AND OFF THE RESERVATION: GEOGRAPHIC HETEROGENEITY IN NEZ PERCE EMPLOYMENT, EVIDENCE FROM A TRIBAL COMMUNITY SURVEY USING HIERARCHICAL ELASTIC NET MULTINOMIAL REGRESSION
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2026
Despite longstanding employment disparities facing Native American populations and wide variation in the employment and economic standing of tribal citizens, prior economic literature has not adequately explored intratribal variation or geographic stratification. In this study, I use data from the 2018 Nez Perce Workforce Development Survey to examine employment outcomes — employment intensity, labor force participation, and employment adequacy — among citizens of the Nez Perce Tribe. Using hierarchical elastic net multinomial logit regression, I estimate location-specific average marginal effects for tribal members living on or near versus far from the reservation. I find that non-employer healthcare access, reliance on public internet, recent experiences of adversity, and several household characteristics show contrasting associations with employment probabilities that depend on whether a tribal citizen lives on or near the reservation versus far from it. Estimated differences in marginal effects on employment outcomes between locations range from -55.6 to 47.1 percentage points across covariates of primary interest, with the largest significant contrasts driven by public internet reliance and non-employer healthcare access (absolute differences of 47.3 and 38.6 percentage points). These results provide an empirical basis for applying theoretical frameworks of spatial mismatch, discrimination, social capital, and institutional economics to Native American employment within specific tribal communities. My finding of substantial heterogeneity suggests that Nez Perce citizens face distinct constraints depending on location. Policy initiatives aimed at addressing longstanding employment disparities between tribal members and the broader U.S. population must be carried out in coordination with tribal governments, utilize tribal-specific data, and better account for how individual and household characteristics interact with the distinct institutional and social contexts across geographies.
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- ON AND OFF THE RESERVATION: GEOGRAPHIC HETEROGENEITY IN NEZ PERCE EMPLOYMENT, EVIDENCE FROM A TRIBAL COMMUNITY SURVEY USING HIERARCHICAL ELASTIC NET MULTINOMIAL REGRESSION
- Dylan Benjamin Moore
- Patrick Carlin (Advisor)Ana Espinola-Arredondo (Committee Member)Alan Love (Committee Member)
- Washington State University
- School of Economic Sciences
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- 131
- 99901393306101842
- English
- Thesis