Separation, divorce, and housing tenure: a cross-country comparison

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

October 15, 2019

Summary:

Background: Housing tenure after divorce is an important factor in individuals’ well-being. Although previous studies have examined tenure changes following divorce, only a few studies have compared patterns across countries.

Objective: We study the destination tenure type of separated individuals (homeownership, social renting, private renting, other) in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands and investigate differences by education and parenthood status. We compare the results of partnered and separated individuals.

Methods: Applying Poisson regression to longitudinal data from four countries, we study individuals’ likelihood of moving and moving to different tenure types by partnership status.

Results: Separated individuals are more likely to experience a residential change than those in a relationship in all countries. Following separation, moving to renting is more common than moving to homeownership. In the countries where the data allow distinguishing private renting from social renting, private renting is the most common outcome. The second most common destination is homeownership in Australia, and social renting in Germany and the United Kingdom. We find interesting tendencies by education and parenthood status. Low-educated individuals tend to move to social renting after separation, whereas the highly educated tend to move to homeownership. Separated parents are more likely to move to social and private renting than those who are childless (except in the United Kingdom, where childless separated people tend to move to private renting).

Contribution: The findings highlight striking similarities in individuals’ post-separation residential mobility and housing across countries, despite significant differences in welfare systems and housing markets.

Published in

Demographic Research

Volume and page numbers

Volume: 41 , p.1 -1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2019.41.39

ISSN

14359871

Subjects

Notes

Open Access

This open-access work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany (CC BY 3.0 DE), which permits use, reproduction, and distribution in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are given credit. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode.


Related Publications

#526006

News

Latest findings, new research

Publications search

Search all research by subject and author

Podcasts

Researchers discuss their findings and what they mean for society

Projects

Background and context, methods and data, aims and outputs

Events

Conferences, seminars and workshops

Survey methodology

Specialist research, practice and study

Taking the long view

ISER's annual report

Themes

Key research themes and areas of interest