Abstract
We investigate the association between geographic proximity to parents and the likelihood of moving longer distances (e.g. at least 40 km), using British panel data from the Understanding Society study and probit regression. We also look at the extent to which this association diminishes by introducing measures of frequency of contact, interaction with neighbors and length of residence. Using a number of different models and samples, we find that living far from parents increases longer distance mobility. Seeing parents weekly and more interactions with neighbors reduce longer distance mobility, but its association with parental proximity remains substantial. The positive effect of living far from parents on the likelihood of moving longer distances is also found in subsamples of those who have lived in their current residence for 5 years or less and of the highly educated, while the negative effect of seeing parents weekly is also found in these subsamples as well as in a subsample of those living close to parents. Even though endogeneity cannot be ruled out completely, these findings show a robust association between family ties and the likelihood of moving a long distance.
Highlights
Migration is an important way for people to improve their position in the labor market
Migration leads to severing ties to local social networks, including those to family
We focus on ties to parents, and incorporate other circumstances identified from previous research in Britain and elsewhere to be strongly associated with both mobility and the level of financial or social costs of mobility: having children, neighborhood ties, housing tenure, having a partner and duration of residence
Summary
Migration is an important way for people to improve their position in the labor market. The previous studies only provided evidence of an association between family or other network members living close by and the likelihood of migrating or moving from the neighborhood It is not clear from these studies whether actual contact or support exchange with family prevented people from migrating, or whether there was some other mechanism underlying this association—for example, knowledge of the local labor market or having ‘weak ties’ to people nearby obtained through the parents. The only research we know of that investigated the impact of actual social ties on migration was Belot and Ermisch’s (2009) study on the impact of friendship ties on the likelihood of geographic mobility Their findings indicated that a larger number of intimate friends living in the same neighborhood had a substantial negative effect on the probability of moving 20 km or farther. We use the first four waves of the Understanding Society survey for Britain to estimate probit regression models of moving longer distances, varying the ‘distant’ cutoff from at least 10 km to at least 50 km
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