Next to kin: How children influence the residential mobility decisions of older adults

Jaclene Begley and Sewin Chan

The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2022, vol. 23, issue C

Abstract: This paper explores the residential mobility of older adults, with a focus on the influence of distance to children on those decisions. Using the geocoded Health and Retirement Study, we statistically estimate the importance of adult child proximity on older adult moves after controlling for a host of other factors. We find that having adult children nearby is associated with a lower propensity to move, with closer proximity generally having a stronger negative relationship, up to a distance of 50 miles. These results are more pronounced if we define mobility as having moved at least 30 miles, or across metropolitan areas. We also show that the relationship is stronger for those with care needs, and for renters compared with homeowners. Results for the baby boomer cohort suggest that the proximity of children continues to have an important influence on older adult mobility among more recent cohorts of older adults.

Keywords: Mobility; Housing; Aging; Proximity; Parents; Children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212828X22000275

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joecag:v:23:y:2022:i:c:s2212828x22000275

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeoa.2022.100394

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of the Economics of Ageing is currently edited by D.E. Bloom, A. Sousa-Poza and U. Sunde

More articles in The Journal of the Economics of Ageing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().