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Housing Careers

Over the past 25 years, the study of residential mobility has shifted from predicting or explaining residential mobility patterns based on life cycle transitions, such as a change in marital status or the birth of children, to an evaluation of the patterns experienced over a longer segment of time. This longer-view study of individual and household residential mobility patterns is known as the housing career. The housing career concept typically includes the examination of the sequences of housing an individual occupies over a long period of time.

The majority of Americans experience housing careers that are marked by progressive changes in tenure status, moving from renting to ownership and improving the quality of their housing throughout their lives. These changes often coincide with progressive employment careers. A smaller portion of individuals do not make progress in their housing careers, moving instead between lower priced rental units, subsidized housing, and informal housing accommodations. This pattern is often seen among individuals who lack the financial resources to access higher priced market rate rental units and homeownership.

Conceptual Framework

The study of careers comes from life course sociology and has been applied to various areas, including employment or family pathways. The study of careers provides the opportunity to explore shorter term transitions within the context of longer term trajectories. While the concept of the career often implies an orderly progression, it does not include a predetermined direction or rate of change. In the case of housing careers, individuals may experience extended periods of progress such as a move from rental housing to homeownership. The foreclosure crisis has provided numerous examples of families experiencing declining housing career patterns by moving from homeownership to rental housing or, in some cases, doubling up with family or friends. Other individuals experience housing careers that are relatively constant, including long periods with little change. This pattern type includes people who enter homeownership and remain living in the same place as well as individuals who remain in low-quality, low-priced housing throughout their lives.

Research of residential mobility using the housing career concept often examines housing choice within the context of life events, with a focus on whether a family owns or rents and what type of housing is owned or rented. This research is useful for predicting mobility patterns for families who are able to make choices about their housing and who are making moves among rental housing and homeowner-ship. However, the housing career concept can be extended to include a wide range of housing accommodation types, information about neighborhood and housing conditions, life circumstances, and reasons for moving. This more comprehensive view of the housing career is particularly useful when studying households who do not follow the traditional housing pathways of renting and homeownership.

Components of the Housing Career

Housing career research may include a variety of factors, including the study of housing accommodations, security of tenure, housing and neighborhood conditions, household composition, and duration of accommodations. As a whole, the continuum of housing accommodations can be conceptualized as including housing in which there are no tenure rights or economic investment by the individual to those forms with a high level of tenure rights and economic investment. At one end of this continuum would be the housing forms used by populations who are homeless or facing severe housing instability. These housing forms include the use of public or private spaces, overnight shelters, single, and doubling up. At the other end of the continuum is homeownership in which the property is without a mortgage. In between are a variety of housing forms that are provided by government, social service, and faith-based organizations, as well as the private sector. Understanding where individuals are on this continuum and whether they are making progress over time is important when making decisions about housing policy and programs. Housing quality and neighborhood context are important aspects of the housing career. The quality of a housing unit and community attributes are important determinants for many when choosing a place to live and contribute to the quality of life. Given the wide range of quality levels within the housing stock and the variability that exists between neighborhoods, a complete view of the housing considers both the quality of the housing a family occupies as well as neighborhood conditions. Housing career research may also include an examination of household composition. People may experience relatively complex living arrangements within their housing careers. One example is the phenomenon of doubled-up housing common among those experiencing divorce and among low-income households. These varied living arrangements may occur within what might appear to be an otherwise stable housing career. The study of living arrangements provides a rich understanding of the housing career and is thus an important aspect of the housing career concept.

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