The Cumulative and Timing-Specific Effects of Residential Mobility on High School Truancy.

This study examined the extent to which residential mobility in the first 15 years of life was cumulatively associated with high school truancy at age 15 and whether there were specific developmental periods during which residential mobility was more consequential. To address these aims, we used data drawn from 4,848 children and families who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (now called the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study). Results from covariate-adjusted regression models provided some evidence that children who experienced more residential moves across the first 15 years engaged in more truant behavior at age 15 and that these associations diminished with each additional move. With that said, the associations between cumulative residential mobility and adolescent truancy were not robust to different analytic specifications and there was no evidence for timingspecific associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]