Socio-spatial Mobility and Residential Sorting: Evidence from a Large-scale Survey

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that residential locations observed at one point in time influence socio-spatial mobility and hence neighbourhood outcomes arising from residential mobility. Using a unique survey of migration within New Zealand, it illustrates the classic result that repeated observations regress towards the mean. According to this statistical property, those leaving the most and least deprived areas are observed moving up and down towards the mean level of neighbourhood quality. After addressing this statistical effect, it is shown that those leaving very deprived areas are less likely to upgrade their neighbourhood, particularly if they also report relatively low incomes. By contrast, the downward adjustment observed by those leaving areas of low deprivation approximate those expected on the basis of regression towards the mean.