Migration, Commuting, or a Second Home? Insights from an Experiment Among Academics

Abstract

In the last decades, more complex types of residential mobility, such as second homes, arose while one-way relocations declined. Existing studies that address migration and commuting as being substitutes often face problems of endogeneity or lack of data regarding decision-making on different types of residential mobility. In contrast, we investigate decision-making on migration, commuting, and establishing a second home by using a factorial survey experiment, which allows for the accounting of both endogeneity bias through randomisation and complexity in decision-making through treatment variation. Hypothetical job offers were presented to a sample of academic staff of a Swiss university (ETH Zurich) in order to examine the intended types of residential mobility and their drivers. Referring to the concept of loss aversion, the utility of a second home can exceed the joint utilities of migration and commuting particularly when the total loss of the current residence bears intolerable costs caused by location-specific capital, and daily commuting bears prohibitive costs caused by a lengthy distance. Analyses show that the migration intention is mainly caused by low migration and high transition costs and the commuting intention is mainly caused by low transition costs and high migration costs. Establishing a second home is indeed more intended with simultaneously higher migration and transition costs. In sum, a second home may be understood as a substitute for one-way relocations and daily commuting, yet primarily under conditions of extremely high or irreversible migration costs and unsustainable transition costs.

Does weekend commuting really pay off? A panel analysis with German data

“…Kalter, 1994). We can assume that the potential group of weekend commuters have high migration costs (Petzold, 2019), which makes them less spatially mobile with regard to their place of residence. In particular, there are many dual‐earner couples who need to accommodate both partners' careers and/or who live in households with (school‐age) children (Abraham et al, 2019; Gräbe & Ott, 2003; Rüger & Ruppenthal, 2010; van der Klis & Mulder, 2008).…”

“…spatial mobility) as an instrument for obtaining better jobs (Mulder & van Ham, 2005). In this regard, weekend commuting can be seen as a substitute for migration and daily commuting, in particular when both migration and commuting costs are high, as in the case when the (new) workplace is (too) far away (Kalter, 1997; Petzold, 2019).…”

“…If the commuting distance is very long and the cost of moving the family home is considered unacceptable, establishing a second home near the workplace to stay during the workweek and return to the family home on weekends becomes an attractive option (Petzold, 2019). Some research has already taken into account the fact that the living conditions of these (long‐distance) weekend commuters differ significantly from those of daily commuters by explicitly focusing on this form of mobility as a separate research topic (Gräbe & Ott, 2003; Green et al, 1999; Petzold, 2019; Rüger & Sulak, 2017; van der Klis & Mulder, 2008). However, previous work on the relationship between career mobility and commuting usually does not distinguish between daily and weekly commuting.…”

Does temporary employment increase length of commuting: Longitudinal evidence from Australia and Germany

“…While workplace-related spatial mobility is associated with better earning opportunities (Manning 2003;van Ham 2001), it also incurs mobility costs. People who accept a distant job offer have two options: moving closer to the new workplace or covering the distance by daily or weekly commuting (Huber and Nowotny 2013;Petzold 2020). In the following, we discuss how perceived job/workplace (in)stability impacts this decision process and argue that high job/workplace instability reduces the incentives to relocate (Crane 1996).…”

“…If the accumulated costs of at least one mobility alternative are offset by the accumulated returns, then the job offer will be accepted. In this case, people will choose the least costly mobility alternative (Petzold 2020).…”