Migration, Mobility, and Neighborhood Attainment: Using the PSID to Understand the Processes of Racial Stratification.

Abstract

In this article we describe the considerable influence of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) on research on residential migration, mobility, and neighborhood attainment, as well as the role of PSID-based research in housing policy debates. We review some of the central research findings and key discoveries that have come from analyses that have used the PSID. We then present new research, using PSID data that are linked to geographic data, to demonstrate how geographic moves are associated with changes in neighborhood poverty rates. The relationship differs markedly for blacks and whites, and our results add to a body of work that shows sharp racial differences in residential context, and the role that personal migration plays in shaping this stratification. Finally, we use these findings and the shortcomings of past research to prescribe ways that the PSID could be enhanced to understand more about migration dynamics and processes of residential stratification.