Rory Coulter

Re-thinking residential mobility Linking lives through time and space

While researchers are increasingly re-conceptualizing international migration, far less attention has been devoted to re-thinking short-distance residential mobility and immobility. In this paper we harness the life course approach to propose a new conceptual framework for residential mobility research. We contend that residential mobility and immobility should be re-conceptualized as relational practices that link lives through time and space while connecting people to structural conditions. Re-thinking and re-assessing residential mobility by exploiting new developments in longitudinal analysis will allow geographers to understand, critique and address pressing societal challenges.

Following People Through Time: An Analysis of Individual Residential Mobility Biographies

The life course framework guides us towards investigating how dynamic life course careers affect residential mobility decision-making and behaviour throughout long periods of individual lifetimes. However, most longitudinal studies linking mobility decision-making to subsequent moving behaviour focus only on year-to-year transitions. This study moves beyond this snapshot approach by analysing the long-term sequencing of moving desires and mobility behaviour within individual lives. Using novel techniques to visualise the desire–mobility sequences of British Household Panel Survey respondents, the study demonstrates that revealing the meanings and significance of particular transitions in moving desires and mobility behaviour requires these transitions to be arranged into mobility biographies. The results highlight the oft-neglected importance of residential stability over the life course, uncovering groups of individuals persistently unable to act in accordance with their moving desires.

Intergenerational transmission of neighbourhood poverty: An analysis of neighbourhood histories of individuals

The extent to which socioeconomic (dis)advantage is transmitted between generations is receiving increasing attention from academics and policymakers. However, few studies have investigated whether there is a spatial dimension to this intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage. Drawing on the concept of neighbourhood biographies, this study contends that there are links between the places individuals live with their parents and their subsequent neighbourhood experiences as independent adults. Using individual-level register data tracking the whole Stockholm population from 1990 to 2008, and bespoke neighbourhoods, this study is the first to use sequencing techniques to construct individual neighbourhood histories. Through visualisation methods and ordered logit models, we demonstrate that the socioeconomic composition of the neighbourhood children lived in before they left the parental home is strongly related to the status of the neighbourhood they live in 5, 12 and 18 years later. Children living with their parents in high poverty concentration neighbourhoods are very likely to end up in similar neighbourhoods much later in life. The parental neighbourhood is also important in predicting the cumulative exposure to poverty concentration neighbourhoods over a long period of early adulthood. Ethnic minorities were found to have the longest cumulative exposure to poverty concentration neighbourhoods. These findings imply that for some groups, disadvantage is both inherited and highly persistent.

A Longitudinal Analysis of Moving Desires, Expectations and Actual Moving Behaviour

Residential mobility theory proposes that moves are often preceded by the expression of moving desires and expectations. Much research has investigated how individuals form these premove thoughts, with a largely separate literature examining actual mobility. Although a growing number of studies link premove thoughts to subsequent moving behaviour, these often do not distinguish explicitly between different types and combinations of premove thoughts. Using 1998–2006 British Household Panel Survey data, this study investigates whether moving desires and expectations are empirically distinct premove thoughts. Using multinomial regression models we demonstrate that moving desires and expectations have different meanings, and are often held in combination: the factors associated with expecting to move differ depending upon whether the move is also desired (and vice versa). Next, using panel logistic regression models, we show that different desire–expectation combinations have different effects on the probability of subsequent moving behaviour. The study identified two important groups generally overlooked in the literature: those who expect undesired moves and those who desire to move without expecting this to happen.

Wishful thinking and the abandonment of moving desires over the life course

Many longitudinal analyses of residential mobility decision making use two or three waves of panel survey data to investigate who fulfils their moving desires. Few studies have, however, focused upon individuals who desire to move but who remain residentially immobile, either because it takes them a long time to relocate or because they abandon their moving desire. This is problematic, as undesired residential immobility could have negative consequences for individual well-being and prosperity. To address this research gap, this study uses 1991–2008 British Household Panel Survey data to analyse the duration and abandonment of moving desires. Importantly, the results show that the risk of abandoning a desire to move rises dramatically with age, suggesting that the well-documented residential rootedness of older people is not solely volitional. Event-history analysis shows that these patterns are partly due to changing levels of ties and commitments over the life course. By demonstrating that ethnicity and income are also linked to the fulfilment of moving desires, the findings contribute to our understanding of the processes producing both social inequality and neighbourhood stratification.

Who wants to move? The role of neighbourhood change

There is growing interest in how, when and where neighbourhoods affect individual behaviours and outcomes. In Britain, falling levels of owner-occupation and the growth of ethnic minority populations have sparked a debate about how neighbourhood characteristics and neighbourhood change intersect with the decision to move. In this paper we investigate how mobility preferences vary with neighbourhood characteristics and neighbourhood change. We use multilevel logistic regression models to test whether this is configured by personal attributes or attachment to ones neighbourhood and perceived similarity to ones neighbours. The results show that neighbourhood deprivation, changes in neighbourhood ethnic composition and changes in tenure mix are associated with preferring to move. Importantly, we show that a feeling of belonging to the neighbourhood or feeling similar to others in the neighbourhood significantly reduces the desire to move.

Living Apart Together and Cohabitation Intentions in Great Britain

A growing number of studies examine how, why, and when people form and maintain living apart together (LAT) relationships. Although this literature shows that LAT is a diverse and ambiguous practice, little is known about whether people live apart together in particular ways under distinct constellations of life course circumstances. Moreover, it is unclear how intentions to convert LAT into cohabitation are configured by life trajectories. Drawing on data from an unprecedentedly large survey of people in LAT partnerships, we construct a fourfold typology of individuals in LAT relationships and show that each of the identified profiles is characterized by a distinctive position in the life course and different cohabitation intentions. These results indicate that LAT is a flexible way to practice partnership within the context of life course circumstances.

Parental background and housing outcomes in young adulthood

Abstract Scholars and policy-makers are concerned that young adults’ housing opportunities are becoming more dependent on their family background. This could hinder social mobility and exacerbate inequality. Using data from three cohorts of young people drawn from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales, this study examines how parental attributes in childhood are linked to young adults’ housing outcomes two decades later. The results show that young adults’ housing outcomes have changed considerably over time and are persistently stratified by parental class and tenure in ways that vary by gender. Housing outcomes have become somewhat more polarised by parental tenure over time as the children of renters became relatively less likely to enter homeownership and more likely to rent privately. This suggests that renters became an increasingly ‘marginalised minority’ in the late twentieth century, with consequences for their children’s housing careers and future social inequality.

Local house prices, parental background and young adults’ homeownership in England and Wales

Financial constraints are thought to be making parental support an increasingly influential factor in the homeownership transitions of young Britons. This could inhibit social mobility, exacerbate the intergenerational transmission of wealth and deepen housing inequality. Although research shows that parental socio-economic advantage is associated with filial homeownership, less is known about whether these relationships are particularly pronounced in expensive housing markets where access to homeownership is often more constrained. This study tests this hypothesis by enriching the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales with data on local transactional house prices. Multilevel models indicate that disparities in the odds of homeownership between young adults with more and less socio-economically advantaged parents tend to deepen with increasing house prices. This pattern is most noticeable for women. However, parents and prices only intersect to greatly stratify the probability of homeownership when young adults’ circumstances are otherwise conducive to owning.

Social Disparities in Private Renting Amongst Young Families in England and Wales, 2001-2011

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Taylor & Francis via https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2016.1242511