About the data
The main data source used in this study is the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) which is an annual panel survey of a representative cross-section of British households. It started in 1991. Currently seventeen waves of data are available for analysis. The survey tracks, over time, all adults and their children,who were in households at the first interview, even if the household breaks up or they move home. The identifiers of the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA), in which households in the BHPS were located at each wave, were made available under a special licence from The UK Data Archive. LSOAs are geographical areas which were designed for the collection of small area data using the results of the 2001 Census, and have an average population of 1500 people.
How the data were used
The BHPS was used to examine disparities in the residential mobility of women with children into and out of deprived areas. LSOA area deprivation was assessed by the Townsend index measured using data from the 1991 census, with those areas in the top quintile of LSOA deprivation considered to be deprived. In order to examine residential mobility, the study used a series of multinomial logistic regressions with the dependent variable as residential mobility with three categories: remain in the area, move to a non-deprived area and move to a deprived area.The results show that residential mobility is selective according to demographic criteria, human and financial resources and the characteristics of the wider area in which families live. The socially selective character of residential mobility suggests a range of policies that would increase the likelihood of families in deprived areas moving to better areas including financial incentives to promote mobility and improvements in economic circumstances. While policies that focus on increasing mobility may be an appropriate approach to the problems facing the most disadvantaged families, policies that aim to improve the quality of life in deprived areas are likely to have a larger overall impact.
About the author
Andrew McCulloch is a Research Fellow in the Third Sector Research Centre at Southampton University. His main area of research is concerned with the causes and consequences of spatial concentrations of deprivation.
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