Proximity of Couples to Parents: Influences of Gender, Labour Market and Family

We use household survey data from the UK to study how close ‘middle-aged’ men and women in partnerships live to their own parents and their partner’s parents. We find a slight tendency for couples to live closer to the woman’s parents than the man’s. This tendency is more pronounced among couples in which neither partner has a degree and in which there is a child. In other respects, proximity to parents is gender neutral, with the two partners having equal influence on intergenerational proximity. Better educated couples live farther from their parents. And although certain family characteristics matter, intergenerational proximity is primarily driven by factors affecting mobility over long distances, which are mainly associated with the labour market, as opposed to gender or family circumstances.