Towards a typology of childhood internal mobility: Do children of migrants and non‐migrants differ?

Abstract

Moving during childhood is an important life event that is often stressful and potentially disruptive. With the majority of existing studies on childhood internal mobility using a one‐dimensional measure of mobility and focusing on the total population, there is still limited knowledge on differential childhood mobility patterns for children of different migrant origins. In this study, we acknowledge the multidimensional nature of mobility by covering frequency, timing, distance, and change in place type to understand internal mobility patterns for children aged 0–16 without and with different second‐generation migrant backgrounds. Internal mobility is analysed for children born in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2003 using longitudinal full population register data. K‐means cluster analysis reveals five types of mobility: nearby preschool‐aged, nearby school‐aged, long‐distance to more densely populated areas, long‐distance to less densely populated areas, and frequent movers. Results of multinomial logistic regressions show that having a second‐generation migrant background increases the likelihood of being in any of the mobility clusters and reveals variation in types of mobility patterns for different migrant origin groups. We conclude that childhood mobility patterns are diverse and overall more often experienced by children of second‐generation migrant origin potentially adding to a more vulnerable situation and inequality over the life course.

Who stays in their birthplace? The role of multigenerational local ties in young adults' staying behaviour

“…While this answers to an important gap in the literature, our results can thus not be generalized to the full population of young adults in Sweden. The excluded childhood migrants (≈25%) are likely a highly selective group of children (Kuyvenhoven et al, 2022) that has higher propensities to migrate again in adulthood (Bernard & Perales, 2021; Bernard & Vidal, 2020). For future research, it would be useful to explore multigenerational local ties in childhood migration propensities, and how these affect migration behaviour in adulthood.…”

Influence of home chaos on preschool migrant children’s resilience: A moderated mediation model

“…It is a tangible, can be concretely perceived family subsystem (Evans and Wachs, 2010). Owing to the restriction of economic conditions, migrant families usually rent houses in the suburbs or old urban areas of migrant cities for temporary residence, and the housing quality is generally poor, such as narrow and crowded living areas, noisy surroundings, poor living facilities, etc., which is often accompanied by high home chaos (Simsek et al, 2021;Kuyvenhoven et al, 2022). At present, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the external environment has changed greatly.…”

“…After preschool migrant children move to cities, their family environment has undergone dramatic changes and has affected children's development (Kuyvenhoven et al, 2022). The development level of preschool migrant children's resilience is not only affected by family environment factors to a large extent, but also related to risk factors and protective factors in the family (Martinez-Torteya et al, 2009).…”