This paper uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to investigate the impact of housing instability in adolescence on the likelihood of subsequent graduation from high school. Combining census data, self-reports, and information about respondents’ residential changes, we use the variation in households’ number of moves and neighborhood quality to predict whether participants obtain a high school diploma. Controlling for major predictors of housing mobility, students experiencing at least one move over a 12-month period have a roughly 50% decreased likelihood of obtaining a high school diploma by the age of 25. These associations are identified regardless of whether students move to a poorer or less-poor neighborhood. Our results carry implications for the development of housing policies and interventions designed for disadvantaged populations.
The United States of the 21st century is a highly unequal society, in which the residential segregation of economic groups continues to grow (Reardon and Bischoff, 2011). Following from a history of racially exclusive policies and practices, combined with a host of policies promoting urban sprawl, this economic segregation is strongly tied to patterns of racial segregation (Dreier et al., 2014). At the broadest level, two strategies exist to address persistent racial and economic segregation; these strategies might be termed “preservation” and “mobility,” respectively (Crowley and Pelletiere, 2012). The preservation approach emphasizes the stabilization and improvement of low-income neighborhoods (Hartman, 1984, Imbroscio, 2011 and Pattillo, 2009). According to this perspective, affordable housing is in short supply and should be preserved where it exists. Those in favor of preservation argue that low-income households should not have to uproot themselves in order to access decent goods, services, and educational opportunities. Instead, housing and community development policy should focus on comprehensive investment in low-income communities, building on existing social capital and other community assets (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1996).
By comparison, the mobility approach, which has received greater attention within recent social science research, emphasizes the strategy of moving low-income households to non-poor areas. For instance, programs such as the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment, and others have utilized specialized housing vouchers to help households move from public housing to neighborhoods that would be unaffordable to them otherwise (Popkin et al., 2003 and de Souza Briggs et al., 2010). A significant research effort has been dedicated to the task of identifying the causal effects of these programs on low-income households. This body of research has found the impacts of such programs to vary widely based on the program, the analytic strategy, and the outcome under consideration (Ludwig et al., 2008 and Rosenbaum and Zuberi, 2010).
One major obstacle to estimating neighborhood effects via a mobility program is that the potential benefits of moving to a non-poor neighborhood occur alongside the potential disruptiveness of a residential transition. Regarding the most prominent mobility program of recent years, MTO, Sampson (2008, p. 197–198) observes that:
[A]lthough moving is a major life event associated with negative outcomes for youth (Hagan et al., 1996 and Haynie and South, 2005), neighborhood change is coupled with moving by the MTO design. Hence, MTO cannot (experimentally) separate the impact of moving itself from differences in neighborhood context.
This methodological challenge remains unresolved within the existing literature (Burdick-Will et al., 2010). Moreover, while mobility interventions have focused on households moving from public housing, there is a relative dearth of research using broader population-based samples.
The present study provides a novel statistical approach to the intersection of mobility effects and neighborhood effects, estimating the relative predictiveness of mobility and neighborhood characteristics with regard to adolescents’ likelihood of achieving high school graduation. High school graduation is a critical developmental milestone, predicting a range of social and economic outcomes that benefit both the individual and society (Tyler and Lofstrom, 2009). Based on prior literature, we hypothesize that the experience of moving is a risk factor for academic underachievement above and beyond observable predictors of moving. However, we seek to identify whether this risk differs between “downward,” “parallel,” and “upward” moves—in other words, moves to poorer, equally poor, or less-poor neighborhoods.
The paper begins with a review of the literature regarding the patterns and correlates of residential mobility in the United States. We then describe our analytic approach and results, which utilize the Add Health data set, a longitudinal, population-based survey that includes extensive information on neighborhood characteristics. In short, using a logistic regression approach, we find that the experience of moving during adolescence is associated with decreased odds of graduating from high school, even for adolescents moving to less-poor neighborhoods. We conclude with a discussion of these findings with respect to the “preservation versus mobility” debate.
