How Mobility Experiences Shape Residents' Sense of Autonomy In Low-Mobility Communities

Background and Purpose

The expanded definition of mobility from poverty recognizes that upward mobility requires more than economic success - it also requires power and autonomy (Acs et al., 2018). Yet we know little about what creates a sense of autonomy among residents of low-mobility communities. Using the Capabilities Approach, which argues that access to real opportunities shapes individuals' agency to choose for themselves, we examined how residents' perceptions of their access to key mobility experiences predict their sense of autonomy satisfaction and frustration.

Methods

We collected survey data from 187 adult residents across two Promise Neighborhood sites in midwestern cities in the United States. Both are predominantly Black communities (71–91%) with over 30% of residents below the federal poverty line. A 13-member community advisory board of residents and practitioners guided instrument adaptation and recruitment, and co-developed recommendations for practitioners following data analysis. Mobility experiences, defined as "life events that, according to qualitative evidence, can demonstrably affect an individual’s economic situations" (Camber Collective, 2024), were operationalized using items adapted from the Collective's national research on experiences that drive economic mobility. Autonomy was measured using the autonomy subscale of the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale. We used structural equation modeling with Bollen-Stine bootstrap correction (5,000 samples) to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results

Factor analysis revealed two distinct types of mobility experiences - foundational (education, basic needs, social support) and employer-based (health insurance, retirement). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the literature-supported a two-dimensional structure of autonomy — satisfaction and frustration. The overall structural equation model fit the data well (χ²[153] = 219.88, CFI = .953, RMSEA = .048, Bollen-Stine p = .082). Within this model, access to foundational mobility experiences significantly predicted both higher autonomy satisfaction (β = .458, p = .002) and lower autonomy frustration (β = -.336, p = .006), explaining 34.9% of variance in autonomy satisfaction. Employer-based experiences did not significantly predict either autonomy dimension.

Conclusion and Implications

Residents' access to key mobility experiences shapes their sense of autonomy. This finding supports the Capabilities Approach argument that real opportunities are a precondition for agency. For place-based practitioners, this means that investing in residents' access to quality foundational opportunities such as education, basic needs, and social support may be a critical pathway to building the power and autonomy dimensions of mobility that current evaluation frameworks struggle to measure and address.