Ep 07: Residential Mobility with Kristin Perkins

Past research has shown that moving to a better neighborhood can improve life outcomes for children and adults, at least under certain conditions. However, these studies do not examine how impacts differ by race and ethnicity, and they tend to focus only on a narrow slice of the population, such as public housing residents. How does moving impact different households in the real world, outside of an experimental setting? We welcome Kristin Perkins of Georgetown University to the podcast to talk about her work, and the difficult (but perhaps unsurprising) finding that moving is more harmful to the wellbeing of Black and Latino children than white children.

Show notes:

• Perkins, K. L. (2017). Reconsidering residential mobility: Differential effects on child wellbeing by race and ethnicity. Social science research, 63, 124-137.
• Chetty, R., Hendren, N., & Katz, L. F. (2016). The effects of exposure to better neighborhoods on children: New evidence from the Moving to Opportunity experiment. American Economic Review, 106(4), 855-902.
• Menendian, S., Gailes, A., & Gambhir, S. (2021). The Roots of Structural Racism: Twenty-First Century Racial Residential Segregation in the United States. Othering and Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley.
• Perkins, K. L. (2007). Roosevelt and Rexford: Resettlement and its Results. Berkeley Planning Journal, 20(1).
• Perkins, K. L. (2017). Household instability during childhood and young adult outcomes (Doctoral dissertation).
• Perkins, K. L. (2017). Household complexity and change among children in the United States, 1984 to 2010. Sociological Science, 4, 701-724.