But the new analysis by Harvard University researchers Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, and Mr. Katz indicates that the community where children live has a significant impact over time-and the longer they live in low-poverty neighborhoods, the more opportunities they’ll have as adults.
The researchers linked the data from the Moving to Opportunity experiment-which was conducted from 1994 to 1998 and included about 4,600 families from Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York-to federal income-tax records. They found that children who moved to low-poverty neighborhoods before age 13 earned an annual income as adults that was $3,477, or 31 percent, higher than their counterparts who stayed in high-poverty neighborhoods.
They were also more likely to attend college and attend a better college, and less likely to live in a low-income neighborhood as adults as well. The women were also less likely to be single parents. “This overturns the conventional wisdom on the effects of the Moving to Opportunity study,” said Adam Gamoran, the president of the William T. Grant Foundation, which funds research on how inequalities affect U.S. children, though it was not involved in the new studies. “It’s leading us to believe that moving to a new neighborhood does have effects on longer-term outcomes.”
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