Wealth, Race, and Inter-Neighborhood Migration

Abstract

Racial differences in wealth have often been thought to underlie racial differences in residential segregation and neighborhood attainment, but research supporting this claim is limited. The authors of this article use data from the 1989–2001 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), in conjunction with tract-level decennial census data, to examine the effects of household and parental wealth on the migration of black and non-Hispanic white families between neighborhoods comprised of varying percentages of Anglos (i.e., non-Hispanic whites). They find generally modest effects of wealth on these patterns of inter-neighborhood migration. Consistent with one version of the place-stratification model of locational attainment, the effects of both household and parental wealth are stronger among blacks than among non-Hispanic whites, with the sharpest racial difference emerging among renters. Racial differences in household and parental wealth, however, can account for only a trivial portion of the pronounced racial difference in migration into neighborhoods containing larger percentages of Anglo residents. The authors conclude that explanations for the racially stratified inter-neighborhood migration streams that underlie and reinforce black-Anglo residential segregation will need to look beyond the influence of wealth and other socioeconomic resources.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Context

“…In doing so, we find that the neighborhood is an independent dimension of stratification, in that the residential patterning of American neighborhoods is not explained by other dimensions of stratification, such as income, occupation, or education. An extensive literature demonstrates that after accounting for differences in socioeconomic status and wealth, black Americans live in neighborhoods that are less affluent and more segregated than those occupied by whites of similar status (Alba and Logan 1993;Alba, Logan, and Stults 2000;Crowder, South, and Chavez 2006). This observation is reflective of a consistent set of findings pointing to a racial and ethnic hierarchy in American neighborhoods, where whites live in the most advantaged neighborhoods even after accounting for socioeconomic status, followed by different groups of Asian Americans and Latinos and finally black Americans (Alba et al 2000;Logan et al 1996).…”

Racial Differences in the Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Residential Mobility in Later Life

“…The place stratification hypothesis identifies race-based barriers to neighborhood attainment that are unexplained by socioeconomic differences (Crowder et al 2006). Our results suggest that barriers to neighborhood attainment are strongest for Black local movers.…”

“…Blacks and Latinos live in more disadvantaged neighborhoods and are much less likely than Whites to move out of disadvantaged neighborhoods (Crowder, South, & Chavez, 2006). Further, Blacks are slightly more likely than Whites to move within a county whereas Whites are more likely to move between counties and states (South & Deane, 1993).…”

“…According to the spatial assimilation hypothesis, fewer socioeconomic resources limit the opportunities of minority families to move into higher quality neighborhoods (Logan, Alba, & Leung, 1996). Yet even after adjusting for socioeconomic status, legacies of racial segregation and discrimination in the housing market (e.g., the refusal of housing loans by banks) limit non-Whites from moving to better and distant neighborhoods (Crowder et al, 2006;Massey, 2013, Sharkey, 2012. Racial differences in exposure to and knowledge of other neighborhoods are also thought to constrain the potential for Blacks and Latinos to move into less disadvantaged neighborhoods and for Whites to move into more integrated neighborhoods (Krysan & Bader, 2009).…”

Unifying Micro-level and Macro-level Analyses of Segregation

“…Studies using individual-level data to focusing on spatial assimilation and spatial attainment first appeared in the 1980s (e.g., Massey and Mullan 1984;Massey and Denton 1985) and then with increasing frequency in the 1990s and beyond (e.g., Alba and Logan 1993;Alba et al 1999;Bayer et al 2004;Crowder and South 2005;Crowder et al 2006;Logan et al 1996;Crowder 1997, 1998;South et al 2005a, b;South et al 2008). But, as valuable as this literature has been, it has remained fundamentally disconnected from the literature investigating segregation at the aggregate level.…”