Models for estimating effects of origin, destination, and mobility

For some time, researchers have wanted to estimate models which include effects of origin, destination, and mobility on various dependent variables, but these models are underidentified. When identifying restrictions have been imposed, either the effects of mobility are insignificant or the restrictions are unreasonable. We argue that the most sensible area in which to expect effects of mobility is emotional well-being and pro pose two types of identifying restrictions on the mobility effects which allow the estimation of main and mobility effects. The first of these con-strains the effect of slight upward mobility to be identical to the effect of no mo-bility. The second constrains the effects of upward and downward mobility to be exponential. For four of five measures of well-being, significant effects are esti-mated. For three of these, mobility in either direction is associated with improved mental health. For another, the effects of downward mobility are beneficial, and the effects of upward mobility are detrimental. It is critical to remember that these effects are +net of origin and destination. For several decades, sociologists have been concerned with the possible effects of inconsistency on two or more dimensions of social status on a host of different dependent variables—social participation, fertility, emo-tional well-being, political attitudes and behavior, to name but a few. The theoretical argument behind these investigations is that when an indi