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Partner (dis)agreement on moving desires and the subsequent moving behaviour of couples

  1. Rory Coulter1,*,
  2. Maarten van Ham2,
  3. Peteke Feijten3

Article first published online: 17 NOV 2011

DOI: 10.1002/psp.700

Issue

Population, Space and Place

Population, Space and Place

Volume 18, Issue 1, pages 16–30, January/February 2012

Additional Information

How to Cite

Coulter, R., van Ham, M. and Feijten, P. (2012), Partner (dis)agreement on moving desires and the subsequent moving behaviour of couples. Population, Space and Place, 18: 16–30. doi: 10.1002/psp.700

Author Information

  1. 1

    Centre for Housing Research, School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK

  2. 2

    OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

  3. 3

    The Netherlands Institute for Social Research, The Hague, The Netherlands

*Rory Coulter, Centre for Housing Research, School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews, Irvine Building, North Street, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL, UK.
E-mail: rcc28@st-andrews.ac.uk

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 18 DEC 2011
  2. Article first published online: 17 NOV 2011
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 12 OCT 2011

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Keywords:

  • residential mobility;
  • household decision-making;
  • moving desires;
  • partner disagreements;
  • satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Most studies of residential mobility decision-making focus on the housing and neighbourhood satisfaction and pre-move thoughts of individuals. This implicitly assumes that individual evaluations represent the wider household unit. However, if partners in a couple do not share evaluations of dwelling or neighbourhood quality or do not agree on whether moving is (un)desirable, ignoring these disagreements will lead to an inaccurate assessment of the strength of the links between moving desires and actual moves. Although overlooked in studies of residential mobility, partner disagreement plays an important role in the literature on family migration. This study is, therefore, one of the first to investigate disagreements in moving desires between partners and the subsequent consequences of such disagreements for moving behaviour. Drawing on British Household Panel Survey data and concepts from family migration studies, we find that disagreement about the desirability of moving is most likely where partners do not share perceptions of housing stress. Panel logistic regression models show that the moving desires of both partners interact to affect the moving behaviour of couples. Only 7.6% of couples move if only the man desires to move, whereas 20.1% of shared moving desires lead to a subsequent move. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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