Residential Decisions, Financial Tradeoffs and Parenting Among Low to Moderate Income Families with Young Children
Background
Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and MacArthur Foundation
This longitudinal, mixed methods study of white, black and Latino families in Cleveland and Dallas examines how housing choices intersect with the many challenges low to moderate income families face, and how the inevitable tradeoffs involved in choosing a residence affect child development.
Research Questions
1. What are low to moderate income parents’ preferences with regard to housing units, neighborhoods, and schools? Given their means, what tradeoffs do they perceive between the quality of the housing unit, quality of the neighborhood and the school, and other factors? How do they say they have weighted their various preferences in making tradeoffs in prior moves, and how are they weighting them in their residential decisions at present?
2. What constraints do families face as they attempt to exercise their preferences? In other words, what explains the gap between parents’ locational preferences and their current housing and neighborhood quality? What explains the gap between current housing and neighborhood quality and the kinds of environments known to promote child development?
3. How do preferences and constraints vary by city, voucher holder status, race and ethnicity, and income? Our qualitative sample will provide us with considerable variation in type of housing market (Cleveland vs. Dallas) and in the characteristics of families, which will allow for a comparative analysis.
The study involved in depth home interviews with 156 families in Dallas and Cleveland, who have children ages 0-8 years old. We also interviewed 15 families in Dallas who received Housing Choice Vouchers.
News Coverage
JHU Hub — "Poor Families Must Move Often, But Rarely Escape Concentrated Poverty"
The Annie E. Casey Foundation — "Factors Influencing Housing Decisions Among Low-Income Families"
Publications
DeLuca, Stefanie, and Jang‐Trettien, Christine. September 3, 2020. “Not Just a Lateral Move”: Residential Decisions and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality. City & Community, Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 451-488. https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12515
Harvey, Hope, Kelley Fong, Kathryn Edin and Stefanie DeLuca. 2020. “Forever Homes and Temporary Stops: How Housing Search Perceptions Shape Residential Selection.” Social Forces, Volume 98, Issue 4, pp. 1498–1523, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz110
Bell, Monica C. 2020. "Located Institutions: Neighborhood Frames, Residential Preferences, and the Case of Policing." American Journal of Sociology,125:4, pp. 917-973. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/708004
Darrah‐Okike, Jennifer, Hope Harvey and Kelley Fong. 2020. "'Because the World Consists of Everybody': Understanding Parents’ Preferences for Neighborhood Diversity." City & Community, Volume 19, Issue 2, pp. 374-397. https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12445
Asad L. Asad. 2020. "On the Radar: System Embeddedness and Latin American Immigrants' Perceived Risk of Deportation." Law & Society Review, Volume 54, Issue 1, pp. 133-167. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12460
Asad, Asad L., and Eva Rosen. 2019. "Hiding within racial hierarchies: how undocumented immigrants make residential decisions in an American city." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45:11, 1857-1882, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1532787
Simms, Angela, and Elizabeth Talbert. 2019. “Racial Residential Segregation and School Choice: How a Market-Based Policy for K-12 School Access Creates a ‘Parenting Tax’ for Black Parents.” Phylon (1960-), Volume 56, Number 1, pp. 33–57. www.jstor.org/stable/26743830
Rhodes, Anna, and Siri Warkentien. 2017. "Unwrapping the Suburban 'Package Deal': Race, Class, and School Access." American Educational Research Journal, Volume 54, Issue 1, https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216634456
Former Researchers
- Jennifer Darrah
- Hope Harvey
- Bronte Nevins
- Anna Rhodes
- Julia Szabo
- Elizabeth Talbert
- Siri Warkentien
- Angela Simms
- Carly Wais
- Mahashweta Gayen
- Barbara Kiviat
- Holly Koogler
- Melody Boyd
- Beth Schueler
- Kathryn Reed
- Kristin Perkins
- Asad Asad
- Jessica Tollette
- Margot Moinester
- Monica Bell
- Kelly Fong
- Melody Boyd
- Jennifer Ferentz
- Hilario Dominguez
- Stephen Wong
- Elizabeth Gomez
- Sarah Jabour
