Woon-werkafstanden in de levensloop

Commuting distances in the life course

Using data from a retrospective life-course survey conducted in the Netherlands in the beginning of the 1990s, we investigate the influence of the dynamics in residential and work locations and of the importance of the residential location versus the household situation on commuting distances. We find that a longer duration of an episode between two changes in the residential or work location is associated with a shorter commuting distance. Residential relocations between municipalities lead to greater commuting distances than workplace mobility between municipalities. Living in a more urbanized area has a negative effect on commuting distance. We conclude that residential location choice is a crucial factor underlying commuting distances. It seems that bivariate associations between commuting distance and characteristics of the household and its housing are attributable to the fact that families and owner-occupied single-family housing are mainly found outside the more urbanized areas.