PITT RELEASES REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE REGION

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 8 -- The University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) has released its State of the Region Report which documents social and economic conditions and trends in the Pittsburgh region and assesses and recommends policies for improvement where needed.

The report contains chapters on population and employment trends; industrial change; welfare program trends; the status of women economically, politically, and as victims; the state of the child; the economic impact of the elderly; policies to improve African American economic conditions; transforming government from town to region; and crime patterns in the Pittsburgh region.

Study findings include:

o Population decline in the 1990s was much less than the rate

of decline in the 1970s and 1980s.

o Private sector employment in the region increased to a rate

about equal to US growth.

o A smaller percentage of women than men were employed as

executives, administrators, and managers.

o The high school dropout rate declined while juvenile

delinquency increased in the county in the 1990s.

o One health care job is created for every nine elderly

residents in the region.

o Most African Americans in the city and county continue to

be at the margins of the local economy.

o Crime rates, which do not include drug crimes, have been

declining in the 1990s in the US but increasing in the region.

This is UCSUR's sixth State of the Region Report. Previous reports were released in 1984, 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1992.

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