Racial disparities in the pattern of intergenerational neighbourhood mobility

Abstract

Neighbourhood context is known to shape one’s life chances, but much of neighbourhood disadvantage is passed down from parents to children. The gap in social and economic achievements between Black and White families in the United States may partially be explained by differences in the intergenerational transmission of neighbourhood context. Using census tract socio-economic data, we created a national ranking of US census tracts. We then examined intergenerational neighbourhood mobility using 2828 parent–child pairs from a longitudinal household survey. We found that White children, compared with Black children, were more likely to inherit higher neighbourhood ranks from their parents. Income and education had smaller negative effects on neighbourhood rank for White children than Black children, all other things equal. Black children whose parents were in the bottom 25th percentile neighbourhood rank tended to move up in neighbourhood rank. But by much smaller magnitudes than their White counterparts. Our findings indicate that different patterns of intergenerational neighbourhood mobility between White and Black families may be an important factor for persisting racial disparities in the neighbourhood context.