Determinants of residential mobility: an adaptive retrospective survey method

This study introduces a survey instrument to collect retrospective life-course events, focusing on residential relocation, and it utilizes the survey to evaluate determinants of residential mobility. The survey consists of seven modules collecting information about household structure and household demographics, latest residential relocation, current and previous home, employment, education, vehicle ownership, and travel behavior. The time window of the life-course calendar in the survey is customized according to the latest residential relocation as an anchor point to assist with memory recollection and balance the required input from participants. The survey is used to collect data from a sample of 514 respondents in Sydney, Australia, and another sample of 404 respondents in Chicago, Illinois, in the US. The Cox proportional hazard model is used to analyze residential mobility. The results show primary school commencement is a salient determinant of residential relocation, but its impact is significantly higher in Chicago compared to Sydney.

Automated summary

This study introduces a survey instrument to collect retrospective life-course events, focusing on residential relocation, and utilizes the survey to evaluate determinants of residential mobility. The results show that primary school commencement is a salient determinant of residential relocation, but its impact is significantly higher in Chicago compared to Sydney.