Divorce, Separation, and Housing Changes: A Multiprocess Analysis of Longitudinal Data from England and Wales

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of marital and nonmarital separation on individuals' residential and housing trajectories. Using rich data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and applying multilevel competingrisks event history models, we analyze the risk of a move of single, married, cohabiting, and separated men and women to different housing types. We distinguish moves due to separation from moves of separated people and account for unobserved codeterminants of moving and separation risks. Our analysis shows that many individuals move due to separation, as expected, but that the likelihood of moving is also relatively high among separated individuals. We find that separation has a long-term effect on individuals' residential careers. Separated women exhibit high moving risks regardless of whether they moved out of the joint home upon separation, whereas separated men who did not move out upon separation are less likely to move. Interestingly, separated women are most likely to move to terraced houses, whereas separated men are equally likely to move to flats (apartments) and terraced (row) houses, suggesting that family structure shapes moving patterns of separated individuals.

Housing consequences of divorce and separation in a 'super home ownership' regime: The case of Hungary

“…Empirical results indeed show that most life course events have a positive effect on the probability of moving, with union formation and dissolution being the most influential ones (Clark 2013;Morris 2017). Compared to couples who are still together and to single people, the divorced and the separated are more likely to change residence (Feijten 2005;Feijten and van Ham 2007;Mikolai and Kulu 2018). This effect is the strongest immediately after separation but still visible three or more years later (Mikolai and Kulu 2018).…”

“…Compared to couples who are still together and to single people, the divorced and the separated are more likely to change residence (Feijten 2005;Feijten and van Ham 2007;Mikolai and Kulu 2018). This effect is the strongest immediately after separation but still visible three or more years later (Mikolai and Kulu 2018). Studies on housing changes after divorce find a substantial amount of housing mobility and a negative impact of partnership disruption on tenure, quality, size, or neighbourhood.…”

“…Only few studies make a distinction between the dissolution of a marital and a nonmarital union (Feijten and van Ham 2010), while others do not expect considerable differences between them regarding residential change (Feijten and van Ham 2007;Mikolai and Kulu 2018). Studies finding that separation from cohabitation has a larger impact on residential relocation than divorce (Clark 2013;Morris 2017) distinguish between the events of divorce and separation, with married couples first experiencing separation then divorce, and nonmarried couples experiencing separation only.…”

Who leaves, who stays? Gendered routes out of the family home following union dissolution in Italy

“…Most studies have concentrated on moves out of homeownership (Sullivan 1986;Dieleman, Clark, and Deurloo 1995;Feijten and Mulder 2005;Helderman 2007;Dewilde 2008;Feijten and Van Ham 2010;Lersch and Vidal 2014), as this downward move represents the most common housing experience following separation for at least one of the two ex-partners. However, more recent work has extended the focus to all separated women and men, looking at moves to different tenure types (Mikolai and Kulu 2018a), as well as to different dwelling types (Mikolai and Kulu 2018b). A specific research thread has directed attention to who leaves and who stays in the joint household upon separation (see, for instance, Mulder and Wagner 2010).…”

Family structure effects on U.S. children’s well-being? Re-examining the family instability hypothesis

“…Therefore such changes will affect the instability of AFS, while simultaneously these same changes (i.e. now as confounders) will affect children's well-being as well (Mikolai and Kulu (2018), Jacoby et al (2017), Perkins (2017 and Harding et al (2010)).…”