Impacts of moving frequently

When I post a long blog, I try to follow it with a shorter one. This article is also the only one I have found on the topic. Given fragile economic times for many people, we can expect more children moving as homes are foreclosed, apartment owners change, and families can’t make rent and mortgage payments. Abenavoli, Amadon & Briggs (2025) published “Cascading Effects of Residential Mobility on Maternal and Child Mental Health” in Developmental Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statement:

Moving is a common experience for U.S. families and may negatively affect the mental health of both parents and children. In this study, we examined how residential mobility is associated with changes in mental health over time among mothers and children in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (previously “Fragile Families”) from the child’s birth to age 15. Using path analyses, we found that moving frequently when children were young was associated with greater depression among mothers when their children were 5, which, in turn, was associated with maternal and child mental health outcomes in the middle childhood and adolescent periods. That is, maternal depression acted as a pathway through which early residential mobility was associated with both maternal and child outcomes over time. This study highlights the complex interplay between residential mobility and maternal and child mental health and the critical role of maternal depression. Results underscore the need to support mothers who move frequently to support their own and their children’s mental health in the years to follow. 

This study indicates that mothers who moved frequently when their children were young had significantly greater depressive symptoms than mothers who did not move. Maternal depression during the early childhood period acted as a pathway through which residential mobility was associated with later maternal depression, child internalizing, and child externalizing. 

This finding makes perfect sense to me in that frequent moving is often associated with economic helplessness which, in turn, exacerbates depression in moms of young children. As I noted above, current economic stressors may make this situation increasingly common. However, it would be interesting to study people who move often but for positive reasons, e.g., children of parents in the military, in foreign service, or in nongovernmental agencies.