Household Migrations: The Link between Household and Housing

Michel Poulain, Université Catholique de Louvain

A methodology allowing distinction between individual and household migration is proposed. Individual migration involves a person independently from the household in which he/she was living for joining another household or building a new one. At the opposite, household migration involves all the persons composing a given household. All the household members experience the same migration so that no change of household in observed. Both type of migrations result from different decision making processes. Moreover these two types of migrations have different consequence on housing. In the more simple cases, individual migration does not make a dwelling free of occupation and does not need an empty dwelling for new occupation. At the opposite this is the case for household migration. At individual, local and regional levels, the distinction between individual and household migration brings a lot of clarifications in the link between household and housing helping to forecast housing needs.