Rural Homeownership and Labour Mobility in the United States

Abstract

Are rural homeowners in the workforce as mobile as urban? This paper focuses on whether rural unemployed homeowners end their unemployment spells more or less often without moving than urban homeowners. A competing hazard model is estimated using a five year panel that controls for the demographics of the individuals and the economic characteristics of their workplaces. We find evidence that unemployed rural homeowners appear to be less mobile than unemployed urban homeowners, which may suggest the presence of a lock-in effect similar to those identified by other researchers associated with subsidized housing, homeownership compared to renting, and mortgage illiquidity.

Governmentalities of mobility: The role of housing in the governance of Australian rural mobilities

“…While counterurbanisation has been attributed as having a positive effect on reviving previously dying rural housing markets, a number of other studies have found cause for concern regarding the impact of this type of mobility and rural housing. For instance, in Australia and the United States the ability to access affordable social and private forms of housing in rural locations has been argued to produce a type of 'welfare-led' migration of low-income households to these areas (Fitchen, 1994(Fitchen, , 1995Nord et al, 1995;Cromartie and Nord, 1997;Hugo and Bell, 1998;Burnley et al, 2007;Costello, 2009;Monchuk et al, 2012). Such processes are argued to 'trap' lowincome households into poorly resourced locations, further isolating them from employment and other social services.…”

The Enduring Price of Place: Revisiting the Rural Cost of Living☆

“…18 When comparing home prices, it is important to keep in mind that even when rural home prices are lower, rural owners can also face low turnover and low resale values (Monchuk, Kilkenny, and Phimister 2014). For example, as one participant note; "If you built a 2400 square foot home and tried to sell it, it would be almost impossible to get your money back on the selling price."…”

A new career in a new town. Job search methods and regional mobility of unemployed workers

“…In data with repeated measurement of spells, artificial spells can arise by discrepancies in what an individual recalls at a certain interview, and what was recorded at the previous interview. Following Upward (1999), and similarly to Battu et al (2008) and Monchuk et al (2014), these seam effects are dealt with in this paper by applying the principle that information recorded closest to a certain event is the most reliable. Namely, the following three general rules have been used: (i) if the earliest spell recalled by the individual at wave t starts on or before the date of interview in t − 1, and labour force status has changed, the spell is considered a new one and the start date is set equal to the following month; (ii) if the earliest spell recalled by the individual at wave t starts on or before the date of interview in t − 1, and labour force status is the same, the spell is considered the same; (iii) the start date of the unemployment spell is derived from the earliest interview in the spell.…”

“…In order to investigate the geographical scope of search methods, exits to job are decomposed between exits to local jobs and to non-local jobs (Munch et al, 2006;Battu et al, 2008;Monchuk et al, 2014). Exits to non-local jobs are defined as exits associated to a residential move in a distant area occurring around the date of exit.…”

“…Unemployment spells have an underlying continuous process but the data are interval-censored since the exact exit date is not observed within months. Following Monchuk et al (2014) and Morescalchi (2016), hazards are treated as intrinsically discrete by employing a multinomial logit model with data organized in person-month form (Allison, 1982). In case intervals are relatively short or interval-hazards are relatively small, the multinomial logit model provides a close approximation of interval-censored duration models in which the underlying (continuous) hazard is constant within intervals (Jenkins, 2005, p. 105).…”