3. In their new neighborhoods, girls experience a greater sense of safety and are less likely to engage in risky behavior than boys

4. Boys in the treatment group are more likely to be surveilled and harassed by neighbors, leading to increased risk behavior

1. The study design was unique in that it was the first to empirically test the premise that neighborhoods with higher incomes, better performing schools, more job prospects and lower rates of crime could lift families out of poverty.

2. The study was large-scale, randomly assigning over 4,600 families to either a control group (no offer to move) or a treatment group (housing vouchers to relocate only to neighborhoods with less than a ten percent poverty rate).

-In-depth interviews were conducted between July 2003 and June 2004, six to nine years after families were first placed in neighborhoods with lower rates of poverty.

-The interviews were set up as loosely structured conversations where researchers hoped to learn the “whole story” and followed up each question with probes, either provided in the instructions or based on their discretion.

The qualitative research conducted by Edin and co-authors supported the quantitative findings by uncovering the social processes behind the gender differences in outcomes. The researchers identified six potential factors that were largely responsible for why girls fared better than boys. These factors included differences in daily routines, neighborhood norms and social control, navigational strategies, interactions with neighborhood peers, involvement of social fathers, and long-term effects of neighborhoods.

The qualitative results also provide evidence that supports the individual steps of the Theory of Change. For example, the first step of the Theory of Change is “Increase Access to Opportunity”. The Moving to Opportunity experiment provided low-income families with the opportunity to move to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates, which is an example of increasing access to opportunity. Additionally, the qualitative results showed that the girls in the treatment group experienced a greater sense of safety in their new neighborhoods and had more access to activities and resources that allowed them to thrive. This supports the second step of the Theory of Change, which is “Improve Quality of Life”. Furthermore, the qualitative results showed that the boys in the treatment group were more likely to engage in risky behavior than boys in the control group, which supports the third step of the Theory of Change, which is “Decrease Risky Behavior”.

In conclusion, this mixed methods study will provide further insight into how the presence of social fathers could have impacted the outcomes of boys in the MTO experiment. By combining quantitative and qualitative data, the study will help to uncover the underlying social processes that drove the gap in outcomes between girls and boys.