Housing Consumption and Young Households' Residential Moves

The paper examines the impact of contextual factors on young households residential moves. By dealing with young households moves over a limited period of time enables us to show how differences in contextual factors determine differences in young households residential mobility rates. A housing search model is outlined to explain housing consumption and mobility choices of young households. In the empirical analysis a multi-spell mixed proportional hazard model is estimated on young households. Estimation results indicate that housing choices are set in a local housing and labor market context, affecting housing careers of young households mostly likely persisting through later stages in the life course. Differences in residential mobility rates are furthermore associated with synchronized changes in household composition, indicating the importance of the household demographics in housing market phenomena.