Residential Mobility and Children’s Well-Being

1. Residential Mobility and Children’s Well-Being David Murphey, Ph.D. Kristin A. Moore, Ph.D. Tawana Bandy Presented  to  the International Society for Child Indicators, Biannual Meeting York,  England July 27-29, 2011 www.childtrends.org Twitter/childtrends www.facebook.com/childtrends:

2. Goals: • Examine the prevalence and frequency of residential moves among U.S. children • Analyze the association of frequent moves with several measures of child well-being, controlling for other demographic variables

3. Residential moves are common among U.S. households with children • The recent housing crisis has increased rates of residential discontinuity, prompting concerns about children’s welfare • In 2010, nearly 10 million children (about 1 in 7, ages 1-17) changed residence; nearly three-quarters of these were moves within the same county • However, we know less about children’s experience of multiple moves

4. Residential Mobility: A Negative or Positive Influence on Well-Being? • Moving represents a source of (negative) turbulence in a child’s life, disrupting multiple contexts for development, as well as contributing to parental stress • A move can also represent a positive change, if it is associated with improved opportunity or access to more resources, or with leaving a harmful environment

5. Moving is confounded with many family-level characteristics • Younger families move more often • Poorer families move more often • Adult-couple instability may prompt moves • The older the child, the greater the likelihood he/she has “ever” moved • Thus, researchers must control for these and other “endogenous” variables

6. Younger children may be particularly vulnerable to frequent residential disruption • Rapid development in multiple domains (social, emotional, cognitive) • Dependence of their well-being on parents’ own coping abilities

7. However, older children may also be at risk, particularly when moves involve changing schools • Social networks are an important part of adolescent well-being • These extend beyond school, but school is a primary setting, not only socially, but for academic achievement

8. The present study • Uses data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, a telephone survey designed to yield samples representative of the U.S. and each of the states. • Primary focus is health, but includes measures of a number of child well-being constructs, and developmental contexts • Parent is reporter on a single focal child • National sample size is approximately 90,000 • Administered in 2003, 2007, and 2011

9. Descriptive Findings: Many children experience multiple moves • Among 0- to 5-year-olds, although more than half have had no moves, more than one in four have moved 3 or more times, and nearly one in ten have moved 5 or more times. • By the time they are 12 to 17 years old, a majority (61 percent) of children have moved 5 or more times.

10. Frequency of Moves, by Age Group Total Weighted Sample

11. Multivariate analysis: • Stratify sample by age group: 0-5, 6-11, and 12-17 • Within each group, statistically control for: • Family income (poor, near-poor, not poor) • Mother’s level of education (high school only, some college, 4-year college degree or higher) • Race/ethnicity (white, African-American, Hispanic, other) • Family structure (2 biological or adoptive parents vs. other)

12. Analysis (continued) • Within each age group, and using single year of age as a covariate, use statistical regression to examine the independent contribution of frequent mobility (defined as 5+ moves) to: • Global health rating (“excellent” or “very good”) • Has received treatment/counseling from a mental health professional, past 12 months • Problems with school, past 12 months (ages 6-11 and 12-17 only) • “Externalizing” behavior problems composite (ages 6-11 and 12-17 only) • “Internalizing” behavior problems composite (ages 6-11 and 12-17 only) • School engagement composite (ages 6-11 and 12-17 only) • Participation in after-school activities (ages 12-17 only)

13. Multivariate results: Ages 0-5 • No child outcomes significantly associated with frequent moves

14. Multivariate results: Ages 6-11 • Children who have moved frequently are more likely than others to have received mental health treatment/counseling • Frequent movers more likely to have “externalizing” behavior problems (diagnosed conduct problems, and/or diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) • No significant associations with global health, “internalizing” behavior problems, school problems, or school engagement

15. Children Ages 6-11

16. Multivariate results: Ages 12-17 • Frequent movers are more likely than others to have received mental health treatment/counseling • Frequent movers are more likely than others to have “externalizing” behavior problems (diagnosed conduct problems, and/or diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) • Frequent movers are more likely than others to have had the school contact the family to report problems • No significant associations with global health, “internalizing” behavior problems, school engagement, out-of-school activities

17. Children Ages 12-17

18. Conclusions • Frequent moving had no significant positive associations with well-being • Negative findings were limited to school-age children • Negative findings were in the psycho-social domain, not in physical health • There is some evidence to link frequent moving to reported problems with school, but not to school engagement

19. Limitations of the present study • Cannot make causal attributions • No measure of the distance of moves • No measure of what motivated moves • Single point in time; no measures of child’s adjustment over time • Future work could examine: • Possible differences by child-gender • Possible mediator/moderator role for how parents cope with moves • A good indicator?

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