"Moving On": Residential Mobility and Children's School Lives

Ever‐More Rooted Americans

“…5 A review of the literature to 1977 appears in Fischer et al (1977:177-85); see also Long (1998). More recent studies are consistent with this summary -e.g., Ross et al (2000), Buckhauser et al (1995), Massey et al (1987), Alba et al (1994), and South and Crowder (1997).…”

“…They have found that children who move often tend to have greater problems than do other children (see, e.g., Long 1975;Haveman et al 1991), but that finding is best explained by the fact that such mobile children are likelier to be in poor and troubled families (Probesh and Downey, 1999). One study's (Tucker et al, 1998) results suggest that children suffer only if they make many moves or live in a single-parent or a step-parent household. The fair conclusions are that frequent moves are more often a sign of problems than a cause of one, but also that moving is a moderate risk factor for children, especially for otherwise vulnerable children (see also Hagan et al 1996).…”

Life events and moves under duress: disruption in the life course and mobility outcomes

“…The finding that is of most importance for this study of destabilised moves is that it is students in low income, single parent families and who are renters (mobility is substantially higher for renters overall) that have the poorest performance records (Temple & Reynolds, 1999). The negative impacts of mobility seem to be more pronounced in families without both biological parents (Tucker, Marx, & Long, 1998). Survey evidence suggests that a large proportion of those who move, do so locally, churning so to speak, in the local neighbourhood, and sometimes making multiple moves because of economic and family problems (Coulton, Theodos & Turner, 2012).…”

Economic Stressors and Childhood Obesity: Differences by Child Age and Gender

“…Compared to the other sources of economic stress considered here (financial and neighborhood stressors), housing-related stress may have the most serious ramifications in terms of altering a child's day-to-day routine. There is evidence, for example, showing that frequent moves are negatively related to the well-being of children (Astone & McLanahan, 1994;Tucker et al, 1998). Children and families experiencing the types of housing stress examined here may have less control over their food choices and physical activities.…”