Residential Mobility across Early Childhood and Children’s Kindergarten Readiness

• In Event: 534 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. School Readiness and Success

Abstract

Understanding residential mobility in early childhood is important for contextualizing family, school, and neighborhood influences on child health and well-being. We examined residential mobility using longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative survey that followed children born in 2001 from infancy to kindergarten. We described individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics associated with residential mobility for children aged 0-5. Our dynamic indicators of residential mobility examined frequency of moves, nonlinearities in frequency of moves, developmental timing and recency of moves, quality of moves, and comparisons between moving houses and moving neighborhoods. Moving was common, as nearly three-quarters of children moved at least once. Movers transitioned to better neighborhoods but experienced no improved household socioeconomic position relative to non-movers. Factors influencing selection into residential mobility accounted for all of the negative bivariate relationships between residential mobility and kindergarten reading scores. Math and especially behavior scores were negatively associated with each measure of residential mobility after including controls. These negative relationships were reduced among children with higher socioeconomic status for math scores only. Results suggest that residential mobility during early childhood and its consequences are distinct from moving in other developmental periods. Both the high prevalence and distinct implications of early childhood residential mobility suggest the need for further research.

Authors

• Elizabeth Lawrence, University of Colorado

• Stefanie Mollborn, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Elisabeth Root, University of Colorado-Boulder