Nearly one in five children in the United States move each year. Not all children face an equal risk of moving - living in poverty, family disruption, and being African American all increase the probability of moving. High rates and potentially negative effects of residential mobility during childhood, especially among already disadvantaged children, and of great interest to researchers and policy-makers interested in the intergenerational transmission of poverty and inequality. Through the use of newly available data and more appropriate statistical methods than previously employed, the proposed research aims to understand the role that this common phenomenon -residential mobility -plays in the mission of poverty and inequality between generations and over the life course. This research is designed to an: questions: 1) To what extent does residential mobility during childhood influence children's educational outcomes labor market success, and family formation in adolescence and early adulthood? 2) How does residential mobility during childhood affect children's opportunities and outcomes? 3) To what extent does selection into geographic mobility influence the identification of residential mobility effects? Through a careful analysis of the mechanisms through which moving during childhood affects outcomes, and the use of statistical models to correct for selection into the geographically mobile population, this research promises to clarify our understanding of the consequences of residential mobility during childhood.
