What Motivates Residential Mobility? Re‐examining Self‐Reported Reasons for Desiring and Making Residential Moves

Abstract

Understanding why people move home is an important objective for population research. While studies are increasingly examining residential mobility motivations using the reasons reported in social surveys, data constraints and the conceptual legacy of behavioural theories mean that little is known about how people's reasons for desiring and making residential moves vary over the life course. In this paper, we address these issues using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey. The results show that the reasons people report for desiring to move vary considerably over the life course. People are more likely to relocate if they desire to move for ‘targeted’ reasons like employment opportunities than if they desire to move for more ‘diffuse’ reasons relating to area characteristics. Life course events and moving desires intersect to strongly condition moving behaviour. These insights demonstrate how a deep engagement with life course theories can help researchers to overcome the difficulties encountered when using behavioural models to understand moving decisions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Examining the influence of major life events as drivers of residential mobility and neighbourhood transitions

“…It may also be because for married couples separation is the period when at least one partner moves away from the family household while the legal process of divorce may be finalised months or years later and result in a delayed financial settlement. The results also support those of Coulter and Scott (2015) and Rabe and Taylor (2010), although the effect sizes observed here are considerably smaller. This may be due to methodological differences in controlling for time-invariant individual differences, or the fact that other studies were based on a sample of adults throughout the whole lifecourse while this study was restricted to families with young children and centred on mothers' responses.…”

“…Unlike in other studies, there was no immediate impact of subsequent sibling birth on mobility in the main analysis; however, the results from the sensitivity analysis suggest that this may be because moves are made in consideration of childbirth prior to the event (Kulu 2005). Although satisfaction with the home and neighbourhood is utilised instead of specific moving desires, the results suggest that subjective context plays an important role in the mobility process above and beyond other factors, as has been suggested by others (Coulter and Scott 2015).…”

“…Clark's study was also one of very few to unpack divorce and separation into two separate events, finding that separation effects were twice as large as divorce effects (Clark 2013). Using UK samples, Coulter and Scott (2015) observed that marriage, separation, widowing, employment changes, and birth all increased the likelihood of mobility, while Rabe and Taylor (2010) found that childbirth and union dissolution both increased the likelihood of moving. Rabe and Taylor (2010) also accounted for neighbourhood opinions and observed that negative opinions were associated with increased mobility.…”

Immobility and insecure labour markets: An active response to precarious employment

“…Coulter and Scott (2015) sought to explicitly draw out work factors in residential mobility. Yet, it has proven difficult to reconcile the 'inconsistency between the micro motives inferred from net flows and those that the migrants themselves report' (Morrison andClark, 2011: 1948).…”

Residential mobility in context: Interpreting behavior in the housing market

“…The recognition that the household/housing link was much more dynamic than suggested by the static life cycle approach led to a growing literature on dynamics rather than statics. In response to the changes in family structures, research moved to a focus on the dynamics of mobility and housing choice rather than a static classification of people and houses (Clark and Dieleman, 1996;Clark, 2013a;Mulder 1993Mulder , 2007Mulder and Smits, 1999;Helderman et al, 2006;Coulter et al, 2011;Coulter and Scott, 2015).…”