Analysing the effects of residential mobility behaviours on the composition of personal network in Switzerland

Abstract

Individual life courses are marked by residential mobility often associated with family and workplace changes and therefore likely to be related to the types of personal relationships people develop and maintain. Evidence about the relationship between residential mobility behaviours over the life course and personal network composition is however scarce. This study investigates this relationship among 747 individuals living in Switzerland using regression models and standard deviational ellipse for analysing all residential locations in Switzerland and their duration over the life course. Results show that people with low residential mobility have personal networks centred around the partner and vertical family ties (parents and children), confirming that strong intergenerational ties develop in close proximity. By contrast, longer distance residential moves at the regional level are associated with small personal networks centred around peers and horizontal ties (such as friends and siblings). The network composition of people with mobility experiences at the national level does not differ from the network composition of non‐movers when controlling for socio‐demographic characteristics. Likewise, networks including in‐laws and extended family members and large mixed networks including both family and friends were not associated with a particular residential mobility trajectory. The density of the Swiss transport system enabling people to stay connected to family and friends may partly explain the weak association between residential mobility behaviours and the composition of personal networks.

Do Internal Migration Experiences Facilitate Migration Intentions and Behavior?

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“…The asso ci a tion between migra tion expe ri ence and sub se quent migra tion behav ior may be con founded by the lack of social cap i tal among repeat migrants. Internal migrants are known to have smaller social net works built around peers, whereas less mobile indi vid u als tend to develop larger net works cen tered on fam ily mem bers (Drevon et al 2021;Viry 2012). Past inter nal migrants may there fore be more likely to migrate again sim ply because they lack social ties to root them in place.…”

A configurational approach to transnational families: Who and where is one's family in the case of mobile older adults?

“…Yet this scholarship has scarcely glanced at the spatial (transnational) dimension of family networks. Some noteworthy exceptions have examined the implications of intra‐national residential mobility on family configurations and social support (Viry, 2012; Drevon et al., 2021) and have explored the association of geographic distance with inclusive patterns of family configurations (Widmer & Viry, 2017).…”

Spatial Interactions and the Commercialisation of Academic Patents: The Chinese Experience

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