Homophily, selection, and choice in segregation models.

Schelling's 1971 work on the dynamics of segregation showed that even a small degree of homophily, the desire to live among like neighbors, can lead to a starkly segregated population. One of the driving factors for this result is that the notion of homophily used is based on group identities that are exogenous and immutable. In contrast, we consider a homophily that arises from the desire to be with neighbors who are behaviorally similar, not necessarily those who have the same group identity. The distinction matters because behaviors are neither exogenous nor immutable but choices that can change as individuals adapt to their neighborhoods. We show that in such an environment, integration rather than segregation is the typical outcome. However, the tendency toward adaptation and integration can be impeded when economic frictions in the form of income inequality and housing cost are present.

Subjective well-being in China's changing society.

There is now recognition that a population's overall level of well-being is defined not just by income and wealth. Where we live and who we interact with are likely to be equally important in our overall levels of satisfaction with our lives. This thinking has stimulated studies of subjective well-being, or happiness, at both national and local scales. These studies suggest that where you live does matter, although it is health and family status that have the most direct effects on well-being. In this study, we use a detailed dataset on well-being from the China Household Finance Survey to reexamine well-being across China, where profound socioeconomic changes are taking place. The study controls for self-reported health and examines subjective well-being across extensive and varied Chinese urban and rural environments. We find that the earlier pessimism about China's well-being, which emphasized declining happiness, may be misplaced. We make two contributions: first, we show a rising level of subjective well-being, and second, we show that there is a narrowing gap in well-being across different social indicators. Methodologically, we bring in the perspectives of both social capital and geographic context.

Segregation through the multiscalar lens.

We introduce a mathematical framework that allows one to carry out multiscalar and multigroup spatial exploratory analysis across urban regions. By producing coefficients that integrate information across all scales and that are normalized with respect to theoretical maximally segregated configurations, this framework provides a practical and powerful tool for the comparative empirical analysis of urban segregation. We illustrate our method with a study of ethnic mixing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Prospect theory and the decision to move or stay.

Migration has always involved stress and risk. More risk-averse households are less likely to move, while less risk-averse households will seek out opportunities and migrate. We investigate how the theoretical contributions of prospect theory, and specifically the endowment effect, can provide new understanding about decisions whether to migrate or not. We test the hypothesis that risk aversion extends the length of stay in the dwelling and, by extension, in the local labor and housing markets. How long people remain in place is a function, we hypothesize, of their independently self-assessed propensity to take risks, after controlling for a range of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. We use the theoretical insights of prospect theory and the endowment effect (the notion of the "use value" differing from the "exchange value") to explain the likelihood of staying after controlling for life-course events. The results confirm the explanatory power of self-assessed risk in the decision to migrate or stay and, equally important, confirm the role of the endowment effect.

Examining the life course sequence of intending to move and moving.

There is now a substantial body of research which examines the process of making decisions about moving. The questions of interest in that work and in this study using US data are, first, how do life course changes get translated into intentions to move, and second, to what extent are intentions realized or unrealized. This study extends previous work by considering a longer interval in the planning process, and by examining how life cycle changes create intentions, which in turn are translated, or not, into actual moves. We study the antecedents of the expressed intention to move and the outcomes which follow the expressed intention to move. We test the process of forming intentions and moving in the context of life course events and changes. We find that the subset of variables which create the intention to move vary subtly from the variables which create moves, though the triggering effects of family composition change are critical dimensions of both creating intentions and fulfilling those intentions by moving.

Place Attachment and Aging in Place: Preferences and Disruptions.

This paper examines the links between place attachment and older persons' preferences to age in place, and factors that disrupt these preferences. We use data from the 2001-2021 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and panel-data modelling to confirm strong associations between several place attachment dimensions and aging-in-place preferences. Strong ties to children, strong social capital, residence in social housing, homeownership status, housing wealth, and home and neighborhood satisfaction are all positively linked to a stronger preference to age in place. Our findings reveal important differences between older homeowners and older non-owners. For owners, closeness to children is a strong predictor of aging-in-place preferences, although mortgage debt can trigger involuntary moves. For non-owners, tenure security achieved through longer durations at one's address of residence is linked to stronger aging-in-place preferences. However, private renters are more often exposed to involuntary moves. We discuss the policy implications of these disruptions.

What Affects Perceived Health Risk Attitude During the Pandemic: Evidence From Migration and Dining Behavior in China.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed behaviors, at least temporarily, and possibly more permanently, with implications for both work and leisure activities. Some of those behavioral changes, such as dining in restaurants, have significant ripple effects on businesses and employment. We investigate the response to health risks in China with a study of decisions about eating out during the pandemic. We find that compared to a traditional measure of financial risk attitude, dining out behavior better captures individuals' attitude toward the health risk posed by the pandemic and is more significant in predicting their expected total consumption during the recovery phase of the pandemic. In addition, we find that the effect of domestic in-migration is positive with respect to dining out, a signifier of confidence in the government response to the safety of internal flows. In contrast, international migration and port city of entry status are strongly negative with respect to dining out. The risk from the virus is perceived to be much stronger in such contexts. From a policy perspective establishing border controls was critical in re-creating a robust economy. Additional city and household level characteristics that affect dining-out behavior are also identified.

Residential mobility and mental health.

We examine the extent to which residential relocation within and between tenure types is associated with changes in mental health. We focus on four types of housing transition - rent-to-own, own-to-rent, own-to-own, and rent-to-rent - using Australian and UK panel data sets from 2001 to 2017. In both countries, transitions into homeownership and moves away from the mortgaged edges toward the unburdened mainstream of outright ownership are positively associated with mental health. On the other hand, shifts by mortgagors towards more precarious positions on the edges of ownership precipitate dips in mental health when there is exposure to high levels of payment and investment risks. Clearly, residential moves can both alleviate and introduce different kinds of risks that affect affordability. Moreover, tenure transitions have impacts on mental health beyond the impacts of payment and investment risks. However, we observe some cross-national differences in findings. In Australia, loss of homeownership has a negative impact on mental health that outweighs the mental health impacts of attaining ownership. In the UK, these findings are reversed. Acute housing affordability problems following moves in Australia, but not in the UK, are a significant driver of mental health outcomes. These differences have institutional explanations.

Do women delay family formation in expensive housing markets?

BACKGROUND: Recent research by demographers and economists has examined the link between living costs and fertility outcomes. The literature has provided some evidence that high rents, or high housing costs, discourage fertility. OBJECTIVE: I re-examine the hypothesis that delayed fertility (age at first birth) is related to the costs of housing measured either as rents or sales prices. METHODS: I use data from the American Community Survey for 2006-2008 to construct mean age at first birth for women in a sample of 25 US metropolitan areas stratified by rents and sales prices. The sales prices for those metropolitan areas were from the National Association of Realtors. I use models of both aggregate relationships of mean age at first birth and metropolitan housing cost level measures and individual analyses of mean age and measures of ethnicity, education and labor force participation. RESULTS: The effect of being in an expensive housing market is a delay of first births by three to four years, after controlling for education, ethnicity and labor market participation. However, the relatively modest fit of individual models suggest that while the housing market may play a role it is also clear that there is a complex structure to the decision- making around fertility, labor force participation and housing market entry. Overall completed fertility does not appear to be changed.

Understanding the social context of the Schelling segregation model.

A recent article [Vinkovic D, Kirman A (2006) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103:19261-19265] showing that the Schelling model has a physical analogue extends our understanding of the model. However, prior research has already outlined a mathematical basis for the Schelling model and simulations based on it have already enhanced our understanding of the social dynamics that underlie the model, something that the physical analogue does not address. Research in social science has provided a formal basis for the segregative outcomes resulting from the residential selection process and simulations have replicated relevant spatial outcomes under different specifications of the residential dynamics. New and increasingly detailed survey data on preferences demonstrates the embeddedness of the Schelling selection process in the social behaviors of choosing alternative residential compositions. It also demonstrates that, in the multicultural context, seemingly mild preferences for living with similar neighbors carry the potential to be strong determinants for own race selectivity and residential segregation.

Individual mental health, life course events and dynamic neighbourhood change during the transition to adulthood.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, this study examines the relationship between significant changes in neighbourhood poverty during the transition to adulthood and shifts in depressive symptoms. We found that associations between changes in neighbourhood poverty and mental health disappeared after controlling for contemporaneous life course events, specifically transitions associated with intimate relationship building and human capital formation. The exception is a decrease in depressive symptoms for females moving into lower poverty neighbourhoods across the entire transition to adulthood period. We conclude that the impact of moving into significantly higher or lower poverty neighbourhoods during the transition to adulthood is conditioned on age, period and gender and complicated by the occurrence of other significant life course transitions.

Reexamining the moving to opportunity study and its contribution to changing the distribution of poverty and ethnic concentration.

For the past decade and a half a concerted effort has been undertaken to determine whether policy interventions in residential location can solve the problems of inner-city poverty and racial concentration. Studies based on data from the Gautreaux litigation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-sponsored Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program have provided an overall optimistic interpretation of the possibilities of improving inner-city lives via mobility vouchers and counseling. A reanalysis of the data from the MTO program, focusing specifically on African American households, suggests greater caution in the interpretation of the findings from either Gautreaux or the MTO program. No statistically significant difference exists between the percentage of poor or the percentage of African Americans in the current neighborhoods between MTO and Section 8 experimental groups. In some cases, there is no statistically significant difference between those who move with a voucher and those who move without any assistance at all. Although there is some evidence that MTO programs have brought specific gains for individual families, claims for the MTO program as a whole need to be treated with a great deal more caution than they have been to date.

Intervening in the residential mobility process: neighborhood outcomes for low-income populations.

Neighborhoods have become the focus of questions about how they affect the families that live within them. A current working assumption of some federal policies is that, with help, households can escape poverty neighborhoods and change their spatial context. How true is this, especially for low-income households, and does changing neighborhoods have measurable benefits? The study uses data from the Moving to Opportunity program, initiated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to test whether policy interventions by means of housing vouchers have aided moves away from low-poverty areas and into integrated residential settings. By examining the neighborhood demography of the initial and subsequent locations of the samples, it is possible to assess the success of the objectives of decreasing poverty and increasing integration. Although the program has shown some success in assisting households to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods, the findings here emphasize just how difficult it is to intervene in dynamic processes such as housing choice and mobility to create policy outcomes.