Towards a Typology of Childhood Internal Mobility: Do Migrants and Non-Migrants Differ?

Joeke Kuyvenhoven , Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute(NIDI)/KNAW/University of Groningen
Helga A. G. de Valk, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) / KNAW/ University of Groningen

Internal mobility during childhood has, according to the few existing studies in Europe, an adverse impact on child development and well-being. However, research on internal mobility still deals with methodological challenges and data limitations. Therefore little is known about the true effects of childhood mobility. To understand mobility effects, it is first of all important to acquire more knowledge on differential childhood mobility patterns and its multidimensional nature (frequency, timing and distance). This study makes a first step in enhancing our understanding of childhood mobility by mapping patterns of residential moves of children aged 0-16 residing in the Netherlands. Since previous descriptive studies find higher internal mobility rates among migrant groups compared to the majority population, the main aim of this study is to assess whether differential patterns of mobility in terms of distance, timing and number of moves can be identified for different migrant origin groups and those without a migrant background. A combination of cluster analysis and logistic regression models is applied to develop a typology of childhood internal mobility using longitudinal full population register data of Statistics Netherlands. The typology is used to understand which children are more prone to mobility and what characteristics may indicate potential vulnerability in mobility effects in early and later life.

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 Presented in Session 59. Family and Life Course Perspective on Internal Migration