Volume 43 - Article 2 | Pages 35–58  

Family life transitions, residential relocations, and housing in the life course: Current research and opportunities for future work: Introduction to the Special Collection on “Separation, Divorce, and Residential Mobility in a Comparative Perspective”

By Julia Mikolai, Hill Kulu, Clara Mulder

This article is part of the Special Collection 27 „Separation, Divorce, and Residential Mobility in a Comparative Perspective“

Abstract

Background: This article provides an introduction to the Special Collection on “Separation, Divorce, and Residential Mobility in a Comparative Perspective.” The Special Collection consists of six European case studies: Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, Hungary, and the United Kingdom, and a cross-national study comparing Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. All studies focus on residential relocations or housing outcomes following separation.

Results: Divorce and separation have a long-lasting impact on individuals’ residential relocations and housing conditions. This influence is gendered – women are generally worse off than men – and varies by individuals’ educational level, whether they have children, and who cares for the children following union dissolution.

Conclusions: Although the study countries are different regarding their welfare systems and housing markets, papers in the Special Collection report striking similarities in the housing and residential consequences of union dissolution across countries. Separation leads to a prolonged residential and housing instability for many individuals.

Contribution: The studies contribute to the literature by focusing on the role of repartnering, child custody arrangements, the parental home, location continuity, country context, and gender for postseparation residential patterns and trajectories. Furthermore, this Special Collection contains the first analyses of the residential and housing patterns of separated men and women in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Author’s Affiliation

• Julia Mikolai - University of St Andrews, United Kingdom EMAIL
• Hill Kulu - University of St Andrews, United Kingdom EMAIL
• Clara Mulder - Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Separation, divorce, and housing tenure: A cross-country comparison
Volume 41 - Article 39

The partnership, fertility, and employment trajectories of immigrants in the United Kingdom: An intersectional life course approach using three-channel sequence analysis
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Union dissolution and housing trajectories in Britain
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A decade of life-course research on fertility of immigrants and their descendants in Europe
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Analysing migrant fertility using machine learning techniques: An application of random survival forest to longitudinal data from France
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Expectations’ predictive power regarding international return and onward migration of immigrants
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Fertility differences across immigrant generations in the United Kingdom
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The changing inter-relationship between partnership dynamics and fertility trends in Europe and the United States: A review
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Educational trends in cohort fertility by birth order: A comparison of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
Volume 51 - Article 36

Union formation and fertility amongst immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants in the United Kingdom: A multichannel sequence analysis
Volume 48 - Article 10

Nonresident family as a motive for migration
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Remain, leave, or return? Mothers’ location continuity after separation in Belgium
Volume 42 - Article 9

Homeownership after separation: A longitudinal analysis of Finnish register data
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Putting family centre stage: Ties to nonresident family, internal migration, and immobility
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The role of education in the intersection of partnership transitions and motherhood in Europe and the United States
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Co-ethnic marriage versus intermarriage among immigrants and their descendants: A comparison across seven European countries using event-history analysis
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Differences in leaving home by individual and parental education among young adults in Europe
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Social policies, separation, and second birth spacing in Western Europe
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Why does fertility remain high among certain UK-born ethnic minority women?
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Introduction to research on immigrant and ethnic minority families in Europe
Volume 35 - Article 2

Union dissolution and migration
Volume 34 - Article 26

Union formation and dissolution among immigrants and their descendants in the United Kingdom
Volume 33 - Article 10

Family dynamics and housing: Conceptual issues and empirical findings
Volume 29 - Article 14

Premarital cohabitation and divorce: Support for the "Trial Marriage" Theory?
Volume 23 - Article 31

High Suburban Fertility: Evidence from Four Northern European Countries
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Migration and union dissolution in a changing socio-economic context: The case of Russia
Volume 17 - Article 27

Fertility differences by housing type: The effect of housing conditions or of selective moves?
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Geographical distances between adult children and their parents in the Netherlands
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Family change and migration in the life course: An introduction
Volume 17 - Article 19

Population and housing: A two-sided relationship
Volume 15 - Article 13

A comparative analysis of leaving home in the United States, the Netherlands and West Germany
Volume 7 - Article 17

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