The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Educational Outcomes for Children With and Without Disabilities: Evidence from Texas

• In Event: Poverty, Policy, and Economic Supports in Early Childhood

Abstract

This study investigates how childhood neighborhood environments influence long-term educational outcomes and how these effects vary by disability status. Leveraging longitudinal administrative data on more than 1.2 million children from six kindergarten cohorts (1994–1999) in Texas, I employ a quasi-experimental mover design following Chetty and Hendren (2018) that exploits variation in the duration of exposure to new neighborhoods.

The results show that children who move to higher-opportunity districts during their K–12 years—measured by the average outcomes of non-mover peers across cohorts—experience substantial gains in high school completion, college attendance, and college completion. These gains are proportionally larger for children with disabilities, particularly those with learning or intellectual disabilities. The timing of moves also matters: the benefits of relocation are especially pronounced for children with disabilities who move before entering high school, suggesting a critical developmental window when neighborhood exposure has the strongest influence.

While the effects for PWOD remain consistent across robustness checks, those for PWD are less stable, possibly reflecting stronger selection bias or unobserved sorting. Families of PWD may engage in strategic residential decisions (e.g., relocating closer to specialized schools or support services), which complicates causal inference and highlights the need for future research on these behavioral mechanisms.

Chetty, R., & Hendren, N. (2018). The impacts of neighborhoods on intergenerational mobility I: Childhood exposure effects. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(3), 1107-1162.

Author

• Pyung Kim, University of Texas, Dallas
  Presenting Author