IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6146.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contextualised Mobility Histories of Moving Desires and Actual Moving Behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Coulter, Rory

    (University of Cambridge)

  • van Ham, Maarten

    (Delft University of Technology)

Abstract

Conceptually, adopting a life course approach when analysing residential mobility enables us to investigate how experiencing particular life events affects mobility decision-making and behaviour throughout individual lifetimes. Yet although a growing body of longitudinal research links mobility decision-making to subsequent moving behaviour, most studies focus solely upon examining year-to-year transitions. As a result of this 'snap-shot' approach, little is known about how pre-move thoughts and subsequent mobility relate over longer periods within the context of dynamic life course trajectories. Current research therefore fails to distinguish ephemeral moving desires from those which are persistently expressed. This study is one of the first to move beyond investigating year-to-year transitions to explore the long term sequencing of moving desires and mobility behaviour within individual life courses. Using innovative techniques to visualise the sequences of a panel of British Household Panel Survey respondents, the study demonstrates that the meanings and significance of particular transitions in moving desires and mobility behaviour become apparent only when these transitions are arranged into individual mobility histories. We uncover previously ignored groups of individuals persistently unable to act in accordance with their moving desires. Visualising mobility histories also highlights the oft-neglected importance of residential stability over the life course.

Suggested Citation

  • Coulter, Rory & van Ham, Maarten, 2011. "Contextualised Mobility Histories of Moving Desires and Actual Moving Behaviour," IZA Discussion Papers 6146, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6146.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Pollock, 2007. "Holistic trajectories: a study of combined employment, housing and family careers by using multiple‐sequence analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(1), pages 167-183, January.
    2. Alden Speare, 1974. "Residential satisfaction as an intervening variable in residential mobility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 11(2), pages 173-188, May.
    3. Adrian J Bailey & Megan K Blake & Thomas J Cooke, 2004. "Migration, Care, and the Linked Lives of Dual-Earner Households," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(9), pages 1617-1632, September.
    4. René Böheim & Mark P. Taylor, 2002. "Tied Down Or Room To Move? Investigating The Relationships Between Housing Tenure, Employment Status And Residential Mobility In Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 49(4), pages 369-392, September.
    5. William A V Clark & Valerie Ledwith, 2006. "Mobility, Housing Stress, and Neighborhood Contexts: Evidence from Los Angeles," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(6), pages 1077-1093, June.
    6. Coulter, Rory & van Ham, Maarten & Feijten, Peteke, 2011. "Partner (Dis)agreement on Moving Desires and the Subsequent Moving Behaviour of Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 5612, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Rory Coulter & Maarten van Ham & Peteke Feijten, 2011. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Moving Desires, Expectations and Actual Moving Behaviour," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(11), pages 2742-2760, November.
    8. Nancy Landale & Avery Guest, 1985. "Constraints, Satisfaction and Residential Mobility: Speare’s Model Reconsidered," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 22(2), pages 199-222, May.
    9. Larry A. Sjaastad, 1970. "The Costs and Returns of Human Migration," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Harry W. Richardson (ed.), Regional Economics, chapter 9, pages 115-133, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Christian Brzinsky-Fay & Ulrich Kohler & Magdalena Luniak, 2006. "Sequence analysis with Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(4), pages 435-460, December.
    11. Emma Lundholm, 2007. "Are Movers Still The Same? Characteristics Of Interregional Migrants In Sweden 1970–2001," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 98(3), pages 336-348, July.
    12. Thomas Niedomysl, 2011. "How Migration Motives Change over Migration Distance: Evidence on Variation across Socio-economic and Demographic Groups," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(6), pages 843-855.
    13. Boheim, Rene & Taylor, Mark P, 2002. "Tied Down or Rome to Move? Investigating the Relationships between Housing Tenure, Employment Status and Residential Mobility in Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 49(4), pages 369-392, September.
    14. Silke Aisenbrey & Anette E. Fasang, 2010. "New Life for Old Ideas: The "Second Wave" of Sequence Analysis Bringing the "Course" Back Into the Life Course," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 38(3), pages 420-462, February.
    15. William A.V. Clark & Suzanne Davies Withers, 2007. "Family migration and mobility sequences in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 17(20), pages 591-622.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lina Hedman & David Manley & Maarten van Ham & John Östh, 2015. "Cumulative exposure to disadvantage and the intergenerational transmission of neighbourhood effects," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 195-215.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Coulter, Rory & van Ham, Maarten & Findlay, Allan M., 2013. "New Directions for Residential Mobility Research: Linking Lives through Time and Space," IZA Discussion Papers 7525, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Rory Coulter & Maarten van Ham & Peteke Feijten, 2011. "A Longitudinal Analysis of Moving Desires, Expectations and Actual Moving Behaviour," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(11), pages 2742-2760, November.
    3. Marcel Erlinghagen & Christoph Kern & Petra Stein, 2019. "Internal Migration, Social Stratification and Dynamic Effects on Subjective Well Being," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1046, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Anil Rupasingha, 2021. "Individual social capital and migration," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 808-837, June.
    5. Clara H. Mulder, 2018. "Putting family centre stage: Ties to nonresident family, internal migration, and immobility," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(43), pages 1151-1180.
    6. Michael Thomas & Brian Joseph Gillespie & Nik Lomax, 2019. "Variations in migration motives over distance," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(38), pages 1097-1110.
    7. Roselinde Wiel & Niels Kooiman & Clara H. Mulder, 2021. "Family Complexity and Parents’ Migration: The Role of Repartnering and Distance to Non-Resident Children," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 877-907, November.
    8. Thomas Niedomysl, 2011. "How Migration Motives Change over Migration Distance: Evidence on Variation across Socio-economic and Demographic Groups," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(6), pages 843-855.
    9. D. Isebaert, 2013. "Housing Tenure and Geographical Mobility in Belgium," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 13/855, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    10. Eldridge Moses, 2020. "Long and short-distance internal migration motivations in post-apartheid Namibia: a gravity model approach," Working Papers 11/2020, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    11. Didier Fouarge & Merve Nezihe Özer & Philipp Seegers, 2019. "Personality traits, migration intentions, and cultural distance," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(6), pages 2425-2454, December.
    12. Zaiceva, A. & Zimmermann, K.F., 2016. "Migration and the Demographic Shift," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 119-177, Elsevier.
    13. Jani-Petri Laamanen, 2014. "Worker Turnover, Structural Change, and Inter-Regional Migration: Evidence from Finland," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 34-55, Autumn.
    14. Stephen Drinkwater, 2003. "Go West? Assessing the willingness to move from Central and Eastern European Countries," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0503, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    15. Martin Abraham & Natascha Nisic, 2012. "A simple mobility game for couples’ migration decisions and some quasi-experimental evidence1," Rationality and Society, , vol. 24(2), pages 168-197, May.
    16. Frank Kalter & Gisela Will, 2016. "Social Capital in Polish-German Migration Decision-Making," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 666(1), pages 46-63, July.
    17. Anzelika Zaiceva & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2008. "Scale, diversity, and determinants of labour migration in Europe," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 24(3), pages 428-452, Autumn.
    18. Philipp M. Lersch, 2012. "Long-Distance Moves and Labour Market Outcomes of Dual-Earner Couples in the UK and Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 469, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    19. Jonne A. K. Thomassen & Isabel Palomares-Linares & Viktor A. Venhorst & Clara H. Mulder, 2023. "Local Ties as Self-Reported Constraints to Internal Migration in Spain," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-37, December.
    20. Coulter, Rory & van Ham, Maarten & Feijten, Peteke, 2011. "Partner (Dis)agreement on Moving Desires and the Subsequent Moving Behaviour of Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 5612, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    longitudinal data; residential mobility; life course; moving desires; sequence analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.