This article examines the association between formal education, social mobility and independent child migration in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam and draws on data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty and schooling. It argues that among resource-poor populations, child migration sustains kin relations…

Notes that U.S. children are more mobile than children in other Western countries and Japan. Explores explanations of this "excess" mobility, concluding that most likely explanation is greater family disruption and childhood poverty in U.S. Identifies average number of moves for children at successive ages and models association of selected…

Analyzes data with individual and county level variables. During 1984-86, poor Hispanic youth and youth living in high-poverty counties were more likely to move to another county than were nonpoor youth or those in low-poverty counties. However, multilevel interactions between individual status and contextual status affected these relationships.…