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Parents are often warned of the negative impact of moving on children, but there has been little research on how the influence of moving may vary by family structure. The study presented here used data from the Child Health Supplement to the 1988 National Health Interview Survey to investigate the impact of mobility on the school lives of elementary-aged schoolchildren in families with both biological parents present and those in alternate family structures. The study found that children who have moved an average or above-average number of times are not significantly harmed if they reside in families in which both biological parents are present; however, for children in other family structures, any move is associated with an adverse school life.

Data from the 1975 Current Population Survey confirm that, during 1970-1975, there was a reversal of the traditional net migration stream between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in the United States. During this period, there was net in-migration of 1,600,000 persons to nonmetropolitan areas, in contrast to net out-migration of 350,000 persons from these areas in 1965-1970. Reversal was caused by a 12 percent decrease in the number of nonmetropolitan out-migrants and a 23 percent increase in the number of SMSA residents moving to nonmetropolitan territory over 1965-1970 levels. While some changes in the size of migration streams were due to changes in age structures and population bases in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, they were caused primarily by real shifts in out-migration propensities at practically all ages in both areas.

Comparing the level or amount of migration within different countries has been a longstanding problem because the local administrative areas commonly used as the basis for measuring migration vary greatly in size and significance within and between countries. Distance moved is a critical aspect of most concepts of migration, and measuring it would facilitate cross-national comparisons. Apparently only the United States, Great Britain, and Sweden have measured migration distances for the country as a whole, and this information is used as the basis for comparative analysis of spatial mobility.

Parents are often advised to schedule changes of residence for the summer so that children do not change schools during the regular school year. But very little research has been done on seasonality of children's moves and whether families that move 'off season' differ from those that move in the summer. The child supplement to the 1988 National Health Interview Survey offers an opportunity to examine the degree of seasonality of children's mobility and to analyze characteristics that increase or decrease the probability of moving during the summer months. We find that many variables included in studies of differential mobility exhibit seasonal effects, but in a multivariate model age of child (beyond 7 or 8 years old), long-distance moves, a highly educated mother, and race that is not Black most strongly raise the odds of moving in the summer.

Distance is a critical concept in the measurement and analysis of geographical mobility, but statistical offices rarely provide data on distance moved. Two approaches for doing so are simply to ask movers how far they moved or to infer distance from localities of origin and destination. The former has been used in Health Interview Surveys, and the latter is applied to Current Population Surveys; both are national surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The two approaches appear to produce consistent results and offer ways of increasing comparability of data and research findings on geographical mobility.

Migration data from supplements to the 1979 and 1980 National Health Interview Survey are analyzed in terms of repeat mobility over three-year intervals. Frequency of mobility is strongly related to age; whites move more frequently than blacks; males move only slightly more frequently than females. Interstate migrants reported more moves over the three-year migration interval than did intrastate migrants; local movers were less prone to make multiple moves.

General trends in twentieth-century black urbanization, migration patterns, & indicators of economic opportunity are examined. During 1900-1970, the number of both whites & blacks moving to larger cities increased. Although whites tended to concentrate in the suburbs, blacks moved to the central areas. The current black migration that occurs between metropolitan areas is characterized by movement from smaller to larger standard metropolitan statistical areas. As indicators of socioeconomic conditions, both occupation & income data indicate that blacks do better in urban areas than in areas with smaller populations. A larger % of black males are found in white-collar jobs in the central cities than in smaller SMSAs. In addition, the greatest proportion of blacks with incomes over $10,000 were found in the central cities. 5 Tables. J. Shulman