Overview

This research investigates the mobility implications of increasingly fluid life courses with particular interest in moves at the beginning of the adult life course and in later life. Cooke (2011) argues that secular rootedness is dampening inter-regional migration, while on the other hand, understanding from CPC-I leads to the suggestion that increased disruptions to the life course (associated for example with insecurities in the workplace and the home) have triggered a range of new mobilities (e.g. to maintain child-parent links after marital dissolution).

Key question: 'What does an understanding of life transitions bring to theories of residential mobility across the life course?' Policy questions: 'Which new mobilities (especially those arising from changes in people's linked lives) are going to have an enduring impact on the UK population and what are the resource implications?'

The focus for this research is on the UK, but comparisons will be sought with Sweden using their rich register dataset. This project uses UK longitudinal datasets, (enriched by the linkage of 2011 census data) to distinguish cohort and period effects of economic and social change.