If you move, I move: The social influence effect on residential mobility

Abstract

There are many theories that account for why households move between residential areas. In this paper, we advance on this by formulating a new mechanism whereby a household’s probability of leaving a neighborhood is informed by the number of other households who have previously left that neighborhood. We call this mechanism: the social influence (SI) effect. By applying matching to Swedish register data for Stockholm County (1998–2017), and after adjusting for theoretically relevant confounders from the existing literature, we find that SI has a significant effect on neighborhood out-mobility. Furthermore, we find that the SI effect is moderated by the visibility with which others’ behaviors is observed, measured as the number of previous out-movers, the distance to ego, and its salience in the social environment. Our study also discusses some ways in which SI might be entangled with other mechanisms, and outlines future directions from which studies of residential segregation dynamics might be approached.

The Urban Tapestry : Essays on the Relationship Between Social Networks and Residential Segregation

“…Changes in contextual composition can trigger individual behavior, leading to changes at the macro level. In the context of residential segregation, individuals from the majority group react to an influx of minority members into their immediate neighborhood with an increased probability of leaving the neighborhood (Bråmå, 2006;de la Prada, 2023;Grodzins, 1957;South & Crowder, 1998). However, the reaction to such exogenous changes may be dependent on the opportunity structure, e.g., the potential set of alternatives.…”

“…Importantly, social influence has also been shown to impact residential decisions (Brandén, 2014;de la Prada & Tapia, 2022;Hedman, 2013;Mulder, 2007). This suggests that if social influence is not taken into consideration when attempting to understand the emergence of segregation, segregation might be attributed to differences in resources, discrimination, or preferences, when it is quite plausible that its emergence is rather due to ties between individuals with similar characteristics and the social influence that such ties exert.…”