Professors Rendall and Sastry examine factors differentiating who returned to New Orleans among displaced residents of the city in the four years after Hurricane Katrina. A major question addressed is whether four years on from the disaster that struck New Orleans in August 2005, the locational configuration of pre-Katrina residents continues to reflect a selection different from, or even opposite to, that of regular patterns of selection into outmigration streams. The question is addressed using new data from 2009–2010 Displaced New Orleans Residents Study (DNORS), with the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 2005 and 2009 waves providing a reference population. Among adults, those who were young, never-married, or the child of the household head were more likely to have migrated out of New Orleans, as predicted by standard life-course models of migration. The usual socioeconomic gradients in which the more educated and economically advantaged are more strongly represented among outmigrants, however, were not found. They conclude that the processes of return to New Orleans is still a displacement dynamic four years on, albeit considerably less strongly than that seen immediately following Hurricane Katrina.
Professor Michael Rendall, Professor of Sociology and Director, Maryland Population Research Center, University of Maryland.
Professor Narayan Sastry, University of Michigan and RAND.