Residential mobility and persistently depressed voting among disadvantaged adults in a large housing experiment
Knight, David Jonathan, and Baobao Zhang. “Residential mobility and persistently depressed voting among disadvantaged adults in a large housing experiment.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 6, 2024. 121 (20) e2306287121. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2306287121
Abstract: This study examines the impact of residential mobility on electoral participation among the poor by matching data from Moving to Opportunity, a US-based multicity housing-mobility experiment, with nationwide individual voter data. Nearly all participants in the experiment were Black and Hispanic families who originally lived in high-poverty public housing developments. Notably, the study finds that receiving a housing voucher to move to a low-poverty neighborhood decreased adult participants’ voter participation for nearly two decades—a negative impact equal to or outpacing that of the most effective get-out-the-vote campaigns in absolute magnitude. This finding has important implications for understanding residential mobility as a long-run depressant of voter turnout among extremely low-income adults.
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Movements Against Mass Incarceration Lab
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Recognition: Winner, 2026 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, ASA Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements; Winner, 2026 Distinguished Article Award, ASA Sociology of Law Section; Runner-Up/Honorable Mention, 2026 Distinguished Article Award, ASA Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance; Runner-Up/Honorable Mention, 2026 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, ASA Political Sociology Section
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Recognition: Winner, 2025 Distinguished Article Award, ASA Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance; Runner-Up/Honorable Mention, 2025 Outstanding Scholarly Contribution, ASA Section on Children and Youth
