Residential Mobility and Hispanic Segregation: Spatial Assimilation and the Concentration of Poverty, 1960–2014

Yana Kucheva
City College of New York

Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. This research was performed at a Federal Statistical Research Data Center under FSRDC Project Number 1712. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed.

This project analyzes the geographic mobility and residential segregation of Hispanic households in U.S. urban areas since the 1960s. I implement a set of discrete choice models of neighborhood mobility along multiple dimensions and use the predictions of the discrete choice models to explicitly connect householdlevel moves to aggregate patterns of residential segregation by both race/ethnicity and income. I use restricted geocoded decennial census and American Community Survey data for the period between 1960 and 2014 to examine changes over time in the determinants of mobility of households across neighborhoods and simulate segregation levels for the Hispanic population given different counterfactual scenarios of household residential mobility. My results show that residential mobility patterns for the Hispanic population interact with existing patterns of segregation by both race/ethnicity and income to reproduce and deepen segregation, especially for low-income Hispanic households. The findings of this project provide insights for policies, such as the Housing Choice Voucher program, which tries to decrease the concentration of poverty through the provision of expanded housing options. These programs may not reach their goals if they do not attend to the specific mechanisms that push Hispanic and African-American low-income households into much poorer neighborhoods than White households of similar means.