The Roles of Instability and Housing in Low-Income Families' Residential Mobility

Melissa Kull, Boston College

A substantial body of literature negatively associates residential mobility with parental and child functioning and family well-being, but extant research has yet to illuminate a comprehensive picture of the antecedents and correlates of family moves. Using longitudinal survey data on low-income families from the Three City Study (N = 2,393), multilevel Poisson regression analyses examined the factors associated with family residential mobility across the domains of family characteristics, family instability, and housing and neighborhood contexts. Results revealed contributions of family instability and housing contexts to residential mobility, with a higher rate of residential moves associated with experiences of intimate partner violence, marital transitions, and job transitions, as well as with living in private-market rentals and poor quality housing.