The Effect of Children on Residential Mobility: Revisiting the Concept Using a New Source

Alison Fields, U.S. Census Bureau

Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2003, this paper uses descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analysis to examine the association between age of the householder and the age and number of children on mobility. This was explored in the past using questions on residential mobility from the March Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS), most notably by Long (1972). Until now, the CPS has been the only source of annual moving rates with characteristics of children (and households) proximate to the time of a reported move. The ACS now offers an additional source of data on this topic. This paper replicates earlier work on the topic of children and mobility to validate the gross residential mobility data in the ACS, and examine whether common perceptions and previous associations between age and children on mobility persist as the population ages, marries later and enters childbearing at older ages.