Corporate Mobility

Parents' Perspectives on Adjustment

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of moving on 309 children of employees of Fortune 500 corporations. Lay and clinical commentators (Kamin, 1988; Raymond & Eliot, 1980; Seidenberg, 1973) have argued that the social dislocation associated with corporate relocation has potentially severe psychological effects. Child development theory (Erikson, 1950, 1968; Garbarino, 1987; Mead, 1934) provides a rationale for this perspective, but it also supports the view that healthy child development is a continuing process of adaptation to a changing environment (Piaget, 1934). The study's longitudinal design made it possible to evaluate the short-term effects of moving and the cumulative effects of multiple moves against indices of children's adjustment in five domains: social, behavioral, and school adjustment; physical health, and self-confidence. Results showed no short-term negative effects of moving and no negative effects of frequent moves. Results supported the theoretical perspective that healthy child development is a continuing process of adaptation to a changing environment and that children who have coped well with prior environmental changes, in the form of a corporate relocation, were best prepared to cope with subsequent change.