Setting the Scene: Occurrence and Characteristics of Relocations

Abstract

I showed that England and Germany differ in their average residential mobility rates (cf. Section 3.1). To gain a better picture of these differences, I analyse the characteristics of relocations in both countries in this chapter in an explorative way. This is important for understanding who is relocating and to contextualise the outcomes of relocations for subsequent chapters. To analyse the occurrence of relocations, I proceed as follows. First, I present descriptive findings regarding the frequency and characteristics of residential relocations in Section 5.1. Next, I analyse the determinants of residential relocations using an event history analysis framework in Section 5.2. In Section 5.3, I examine potentially non-random panel attrition after relocations. Finally, I summarise my findings in Section 5.4. The observation period for the analysis in the present chapter is 1991 to 2008 (cf. Section 4.4 for a description of further sample rules).