Neighbourhood effects, social capital and spatial mobility: evidence from the British Household Pane

1
Neighbourhood effects, social capital and spatial
mobility evidence from the British Household
Panel Survey

• Nick Buck
• ISER, University of Essex

2
Motivation

• Part of a research project examining how far
  where people live has effects on their life
  chances independent of personal characteristics
• including how it relates to the longer term
  development of life chances and social mobility
• Longitudinal focus makes it essential to take
  account of migration and residential mobility
• not just a nuisance factor, but an important
  aspect of individual social and economic
  mobility, both as a consequence and with
  potentially causal effects
• Previous analysis shows limited and not very
  strong effects of area deprivation on individual
  deprivation and social exclusion
• Perhaps the effects are indirect, via social
  capital and other factors hypothesised to
  influence life chances

3
Motivation (2)

• Presentation investigates three way
  inter-relationships between neighbourhood
  deprivation, social capital and migration
• Social capital is hypothesised to have positive
  effects on both collective and individual
  outcomes not something tested here
• Many potential dimensions of social capital, as
  well as significant measurement issues
• Hypothesised negative relationship between social
  capital and neighbourhood deprivation
• Hypothesised associations between social capital,
  especially local and residential mobility
• Methodological challenges in identifying area
  effects

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Approach

• This research uses individual level survey data
  with local area census and other data attached
• It uses British Household Panel Survey data which
  has a rich array of social capital measures
• We exploit the longitudinal dimension provided by
  these data
• In this analysis main longitudinal focus is on
  residential mobility
• For intrinsic reasons how does mobility relate
  to the development and maintenance of social
  capital
• Provides evidence on impact of change in area
  characteristics (but needs further evidence on
  degree of choice in migration)

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Four questions

• Do we find cross-sectional associations between
  area deprivation and a range of social capital
  measures?
• Do social capital measures influence residential
  mobility probabilities?
• How does residential mobility affect social
  capital measures?
• Does change in area deprivation associated with
  mobility affect social capital measures?

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Data sources

• BHPS waves 8 (1998) and 13 (2003) carry
  additional neighbourhood and social capital
  questions
• Approximately 8,500 cases at wave 8, 6,000 at
  wave 13, 2000 movers.
• Matched to Townsend area deprivation score,
  calculated from 2001 Census data at Lower Super
  Output Area (average population 1,400 people)

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Social Capital measures

• Trust generally people can be trusted
• Activity in voluntary organisations
• Whether meet with friends at least once per week
• Whether talk to neighbours at least once per week
• Whether three best friends all live within 5
  miles (8 kilometres)
• Whether none three best friends in employment
• Neighbourhood affiliation score

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Neighbourhood affiliation score number of
positive responses to

• I feel like I belong to this neighbourhood
• The friendships and associations I have with
  other people in my neighbourhood mean a lot to me
• If I needed advice about something I could go to
  someone in my neighbourhood
• I borrow things and exchange favours with my
  neighbours
• I would be willing to work together with others
  on something to improve my neighbourhood
• I plan to remain a resident of this neighbourhood
  for a number of years
• I like to think of myself as similar to the
  people who live in this neighbourhood
• I regularly stop and talk to people in my
  neighbourhood

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Cross-sectional models

• Fit regressions (logistic or OLS) to each social
  capital measure Townsend score alone, and then
  include a range of personal characteristics (next
  slide)
• Explore non-linear effects of area deprivation
  (Are effects especially strong in most deprived
  areas?)
• Present graphs showing differences in dependent
  variable (values in OLS, relative odds in
  logistic) at deciles of Townsend scoere. NB
  more deprived have higher scores.

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Individual characteristics included in models

• Age, age squared
• Sex
• Equivalised household income
• Education qualifications (6 categories)
• Social class (7 categories)
• Housing tenure (4 categories)
• Activity status (5 categories)
• Effects of personal characteristics not shown
  here generally positive associations with age,
  income, higher education and higher social class,
  negative effects of being in rented accommodation

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Trust generally people can be trusted
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Number of organisations in which respondent is
active
13
Whether all three best friends live within 8
Kilometres
Increasing with area deprivation
14
Whether none of three best friends are employed
NB differences are not significant with
individual factors
15
Meets with people at least once per week
NB generally increasing with area deprivation,
but non-linear effects
16
Talks with neighbours at least once per week
NB clear non linear effects area differences
stronger after controlling for individual factors
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Mean value of neighbourhood affiliation score
No difference in area effects after controlling
for individual factors
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Summary on cross-sectional area effects

• Generally negative associations between social
  capital measures and area deprivation, except for
  measures related to close friendship networks
  (bonding social capital)
• Effects are mainly weaker, but still significant
  after introducing individual characteristics,
• But effect disappears for economically salient
  friendship networks

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Residential mobility

• A range of reasons for being interested
• Migration can be related to positive career
  returns, and can be an expression of positive
  choice over housing and neighbourhood
• Migration may disrupt social networks, and thus
  harm social capital conversely strong social
  capital may be disincentive to migration
• Models of the probability of migration suggest it
  is positively associated with income, social
  class, and negatively associated with age
• Relationship with area deprivation different for
  all moves and longer distance only these
  associations are attenuated with other individual
  controls.

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Migration between 1998 and 2003 association with
initial area deprivation
Clear non-linear effect some increase in
migration risks from most deprived areas
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Influence of social capital measures on
residential mobility

• Non-significant for organisation membership,
  trust (weakly significant on its own, disappears
  with controls)
• Simple positive association with meeting
  regularly, which disappears with individual
  controls
• Measures related to area embeddedness have strong
  negative association
• Association also negative with whether no
  employed people amongst close friends

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Influence of Social Capital measures on relative
odds of residential mobility
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Influence of residential mobility on change in
social capital measures

• Meeting people regularly substantial negative
  distance effect
• Talking to neighbours - no mover effect, negative
  distance effect
• Trust no mover or distance effect
• Organisation activity no mover or distance
  effect
• Neighbourhood affiliation weak mover effect and
  small negative distance effect

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Association of change in area deprivation with
change in social capital, for movers only

• No effects for
• Meeting people
• talking to neighbours
• organization membership
• trust
• Strong effect for neighbourhood affiliation
  score, similar in scale to cross-sectional
  association
• Asymetric effect - those who move to worse areas
  are especially unlikely to experience substantial
  reduction in neighbourhood affiliation need to
  investigate whether this relates to degree of
  choice over neighbourhood

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Summary on mobility analysis

• Area embeddedness significantly reduces mobility
  prospects
• Evidence on the disruption of social networks and
  sociability
• Neighbourhood affiliation is sensitive to
  neighbourhood characteristics how far does it
  also measure social capital
• Some social capital measures (trust, organisation
  activity), people appear to carry with them