Moving for the Kids: Examining the Influence of Children on White Residential Segregation

Abstract

White households with children are the least likely of all household types to live in integrated neighborhoods, yet few researchers have questioned whether children themselves influence residential decision–making. Children may affect both residential preferences and constraints and in turn, household mobility decisions that shape patterns of segregation and integration. Following a cohort of household heads in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that white households whose oldest child is younger than six are more likely to move when the percentage of black residents and diversity in their neighborhoods is higher. However, when white households with children do move, they are not more likely than white households without children to move to neighborhoods with fewer blacks or less diversity. Young children may matter for segregation because they influence families to leave more diverse neighborhoods, and white movers generally move into neighborhoods with less diversity, whether or not they have children.