We investigated the extent to which the geographic proximity of adult children affected the relocations of older people in the Netherlands in 2008. A major contribution of this study is the examination of the differentiation between relocation to care institutions and elsewhere. Data from the Dutch population register linked to complementary datasets were analysed for nearly one million inhabitants aged 75 and above, using multinomial logistic regression models to estimate the effects of intergenerational proximity and of other factors on the propensity to relocate to an institution and elsewhere. An interaction of proximity with partnership status as an indicator of the presence of an important care provider was considered. We found that older people were less likely to move elsewhere when their children were living very close by, and were more likely to do so when their children were living farther away. Having children living close was negatively associated with the likelihood of moving to a care institution. Very close proximity had an additional negative effect on the propensity of older people with a partner to relocate elsewhere whereas the negative effect was less for older people without a partner on moving elsewhere. Our findings did, however, show that (recently) widowed people were more likely to move elsewhere when their children were living more than 40 kilometres away.

Previous research has shown the impact of individual characteristics on intergenerational proximity but has largely ignored the regional dimension of such proximity. In this paper, we examine the regional variation in intergenerational proximity in the Netherlands. We address this issue by incorporating indicators of urbanisation and regional culture in an analysis of the likelihood that adult children live within daily reach (within a distance of 5 or 20 km) of their older parents. We also depict the spatial variation in intergenerational proximity in maps. Employing logistic regression on nearly 5 million parent-child dyads extracted from register data, we find that the degree of urbanisation of the residential municipality of the two generations shows contrasting effects: a positive association for the degree of urbanisation of the parents' municipality, a negative association for the children's. Older parents living in areas in which more conservative and collectivist attitudes prevail are more likely to have their adult children living close to them. After accounting for the municipality dummies, the explanatory power of the model improves considerably. However, substantial spatial variation in intergenerational proximity remains largely unexplained after controlling for the regional characteristics.

This article aims to contribute to the discussion of how adult children affect the well-being of their older parents by investigating the importance of living in close geographic proximity. We investigate whether having children at all, and/or having them geographically proximate, contributes differently to the well-being of older persons living with and without a partner. We enriched survey data for the Netherlands (N = 8,379) with municipal register data and regressed life satisfaction of persons aged 65+ on having children and three different measures of geographic proximity. Having children contributes to the well-being of older men with a partner. There is evidence for a positive association between proximity of children and parental well-being, in particular for widowed and separated mothers and for separated fathers. Our findings suggest that close proximity may be a condition under which adult children can significantly add to the well-being of widowed and separated mothers and separated fathers.

This explorative study adopts a regional perspective on understanding differences in observable teaching quality by describing regional levels in teaching quality for specific regions and by examining the contribution of schools' regional characteristics on effective teaching behaviour of 1,945 beginning teachers in secondary education. Beginning teachers working in schools located in regions of population decline have better basic teaching skills than beginning teachers working elsewhere. Multilevel analyses reveal that within the Randstad region, adaptive instruction skills are weaker in very urban areas. Schools' changing student numbers influence the quality of adaptive instruction skills and teaching learning strategies. These findings indicate that differences in teaching quality become visible at lower regional levels and are of interest because these effects on student outcomes might not be captured in national figures. This approach adds to existing literature and is useful to tailor current professionalization programmes for beginning teachers to specific regional contexts.

Research into older people’s relocations to independent dwellings has largely remained separate from research into moves to institutions. Yet, both types of moves could be a response to health problems and to a certain extent they could be substitutes for each other. Using Litwak and Longino’s model of moves of older people, this study assesses the extent to which three commonly used health measures (limitations in activities of daily living [ADL], self-rated health, and the prevalence of [limiting] chronic conditions) predict older people’s moves to subsidized care institutions and elsewhere, in one multinomial logistic regression model. The data were derived from the POLS survey for the Netherlands (N = 8306) enriched with administrative data on subsequent moves. In line with Litwak and Longino’s model, the findings indicate that older people’s moves to institutions were more likely among those with more severe health problems, whereas moves elsewhere were more likely among those with moderate health problems. Among the three investigated health measures, limitations in ADL had the strongest predictive value, and was the only one for which the difference in effect between relocations to care institutions and relocations elsewhere was statistically significant.