Socio-Spatial Mobility and Inequalities in Adolescent Agency: A Longitudinal Study From Peru

Abstract

This study examines how socio-spatial mobility across middle childhood and early adolescence is associated with perceived agency, using five waves of Young Lives Peru panel data (ages 8–15; N = 2,099). A multidimensional measure of socio-spatial mobility is constructed to capture residential moves, rural-urban transitions, and poverty trajectories. Their combined associations with agency at age 15 are estimated using linear, lagged, and time-aligned models. Results reveal substantial heterogeneity across mobility pathways. Upward spatial mobility, particularly transitions from rural into urban, resource-rich environments, is associated with higher levels of agency, net of household characteristics, contextual conditions, and time-varying shocks. Children remaining in persistent rural poverty consistently report the lowest levels of agency, as do those exposed to repeated residential moves, pointing to a destabilising effect of chronic spatial disruption. These patterns are robust to alternative model specifications, including adjustments for prior levels of agency, and indicate that the implications of socio-spatial mobility depend on whether movement reflects access to opportunity or exposure to instability. Overall, the findings underscore how spatial inequalities become internalised during adolescence, with implications for the persistence of disadvantage over the life course.