When a couple decides to move in together, they have an important decision to make: who moves in with whom, or where will the new destination for both of them be? Particularly for long-distance couples, this decision has large consequences. That is, one or both partners will need to not only move house but move a long distance, which for many means moving away from family, friends, work and more. Those who move a long distance (i.e. migrate) to live with their partner are therefore likely to take a hit in their career and social network.
In their study, Roselinde van der Wiel (University of Groningen), Brian Gillespie (University of Groningen) and Lene Tølbøll (Aalborg University) examined the influence of local ties to family on which partner moves furthest at the start of co-residence, exploring gender asymmetries and accounting for other relevant factors. To do so, they looked at each partner's share in the total distance moved by both partners in the year that they start co-residence, using register data for all opposite-sex, long-distance couples in Denmark aged 18–70, who started co-residence between 2009 and 2017. This allowed them to analyse the partners’ relative contributions to bridging the distance between them.
The authors’ results reveal that women tend to bridge the larger share of the distance when starting co-residence with their partner. It is more common for women to migrate towards their male partner than the other way around and women move longer distances than men at the start of co-residence.
Local ties to family are an important factor in the outcome of who moves and how far. Living close to non-resident children, parents or siblings or having resident children substantially lower someone's share in the total distance moved. Further relevant are differences between him and her in the local ties they have: having more local ties to family than one’s partner – along with other non-familial local ties – lowers someone’s share in the distance moved. It appears that his and her local ties do not carry equal weight in the couple’s joint location and migration decision. Men's local ties to non-resident family have more influence than women's, while women's resident children seem to exert more influence.
On the whole, the results of this study show that couples’ decision-making about where to live together and who moves the larger share of the distance is strongly influenced by family ties and shaped by traditional gender patterns.