Housing Mobility as a Function of Household Structure: Towards a Deeper Explanation of Housing-related Disadvantage

Abstract This paper considers the nature and extent of housing mobility for a specific population of 'nuclear family' owner occupiers. The aim is to explore what is a frequently overlooked dimension of housing-related disadvantage.It is suggested that the concept of disadvantage would be rendered more meaningful if it were extended to take account of differential opportunities and constraints within as well as between a variety of household employment structures. The ways in which households generate and reproduce gender divisions of labour represent a synthesis of the negotiation of home, work and family life and, consequently, access to and sustainability of particular streams of housing amenity and resources. Moreover, when household employment structure is recognised as a key determinant of housing mobility it can be appreciated that processes which underpin the 'flow' of household structure also serve to reinforce significant cleavages between households. This relationship, between relative housing mobility and different household employment structures, is described in terms of observations from two sets of complementary micro-data from the Census of Population.