Wohnstandortentscheidungen in einer wohnbiographischen Perspektive : eine explorative Studie in ländlichen und großstädtischen Kontexten

This Thünen Report investigates households’ residential location decisions as recurrent negotiation processes over the life course regarding a subjectively appropriate residential location. Besides residential mobility (migration across municipal boundaries or relocation within a municipality), staying in one place of residence is considered as an equally important option of decision-making. As further options, multi-local living and return migration are taken into account. The study is based on an analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews, half of which were conducted in rural communities and smaller towns and half in large cities in 2019 and 2020. Our research perspective focuses on how residential location decisions are embedded in residential biographies. Decisions on where to live are not seen as singular events. Rather, they are recurring over the life course. At the same time, they are adaptable decisions made in the context of biographical experiences, subjective interpretations, occupational and cultural resources and social embeddedness. Against this backdrop and based on the identified research gaps, the following report addresses four research questions: 1. How do housing demands change over the life course? 2. What role do factors besides life course events or status transitions play in residential location decisions? 3. How do decision-making processes related to staying or leaving take place in households? 4. What is the meaning of the subjectively perceived spatial categories ‘city/urban’ and ‘country/rural’ in housing biographies and residential location decisions? Concluding, we found that chronological life events (biographical status transitions such as leaving the parental home, starting or extending a family and transition into retirement) are of lasting importance for residential location decisions. They build a supra-individual framework, but each residential biography is unique, because further unexpectable events and occasions change housing needs. Housing and residential location decisions are strongly influenced by normative beliefs. The idea of a housing career in the life course, i.e. the constant improvement of the housing situation, as well as the goal of home ownership are particularly powerful. In subjective perceptions, the spatial categories ‘city/urban’ and ‘country/rural’ are related to specific locational utilities and qualities. From a methodological point of view, we argue for a combination of biographical and geographical approaches as well as for interviews with more than one member of one household in order to better reflect the complexity of residential location decisions.