Residential Mobility, Family Poverty, Neighborhood Change, and Elementary School Children’s Development

• In Event: Diversity in Children's Development across Neighborhood Contexts

Abstract

The U.S. has high rates of residential mobility among families with children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). Since the Great Recession, the nature and trajectory of household moves have steadily shifted from “moving up and out” to local moves and downward economic status (Stoll, 2013). For children from families in poverty, the experience of moving can incur distinct disadvantages that may have immediate, cumulative, and enduring developmental consequences (Anderson et al., 2014). At the same time, neighborhood and housing market contexts have fluctuated; since 2012, national home prices have steadily increased, leading to growing housing cost burdens that may have financial and social implications for poor and residentially mobile families (Sharkey, 2012; The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2018; Vigdor, 2010). The current research considers these contemporary changes to neighborhood and housing market dynamics by investigating how residential mobility, family poverty, and neighborhood conditions are differentially associated with elementary school children’s academic outcomes, and the extent to which neighborhood contextual change may moderate these associations.

We conduct secondary data analysis using quantitative data obtained from multiple sources. Child and family-level data (N = ~18,200) are drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011. To test children’s exposure to residential mobility, we analyze developmental and demographic differences between children who moved within- or between-neighborhoods with those who did not move during each year. Neighborhood structural conditions (poverty rate, residential stability, racial/ethnic composition, residential density) will be measured using data from the US Census. Housing price data will be measured using the Housing Price Index of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Neighborhood institutional resources will be measured using data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Institute of Museum & Library Services.

Analyses entailed fixed-effects regression models to examine if residential mobility and neighborhood conditions are differentially associated with elementary children’s academic outcomes by family poverty status; then two-way interactions explored the role of neighborhood change on those associations. All analyses employed propensity-score matching methods to help address unmeasured confounds tied to residential mobility that may undermine causal inferences.

Preliminary results indicate differential effects of within- and between-neighborhood moves by poverty status and developmental timing. Generally, compared to no neighborhood moves, between-neighborhood moves were associated with higher academic scores among children in poverty, but lower scores among children not in poverty (Figure 1). Within-neighborhood moves were linked to lower academic scores among children in poverty, and higher scores among children not in poverty (Figure 2). Results suggest that the timing and destination of children’s moves matter, particularly for children in poor families. Future analyses, which were delayed due to the pandemic, will incorporate neighborhood- and family-related time varying covariates to help explain these differential pathways, and utilize multiple imputation to account for missing data.

Authors

• Julius Anastasio, Tufts University
  Presenting Author

• Tama Leventhal, Tufts University
  Non-Presenting Author