Residential Mobility Behaviour Amongst Households Within Enugu Metropolis: does a change in household income matter?

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue IX, September 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Residential Mobility Behaviour Amongst Households Within Enugu Metropolis: does a change in household income matter?

Ehiemere, Nnamdi D. & Professor Ogbuefi, Joseph U.
Department of Estate Management, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Nigeria Enugu Campus

ABSTRACT
Residential mobility behaviour amongst urban households is indicative of households’ response to the need to optimize housing consumption. Social and economic considerations play a significant role and can either encourage or inhibit residential mobility. This research investigated the influence of variations in household income on household residential mobility behaviour in Enugu metropolis between 2007 and 2017. Survey research design was adopted and a sample of 865 households was randomly drawn from the three municipalities which make up Enugu metropolis. Observation checklists were used to collect data on housing conditions while questionnaires were used to elicit responses from households on their demographic data and residential mobility behaviour. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize household demographic data and analyse household residential mobility behaviour. Findings revealed that changes in household income, though negligible for the majority, translated to an 8% increase in households’ demand for flats. Consequently, variations in household income affected the ability of households to optimize housing consumption.

1.0 Introduction

Household residential mobility behaviour is one of the drivers of land use dynamics and the evolving spatial patterns within a sprawling city like Enugu metropolis. In order to harness the socio-economic opportunities provided by urban centres, as well as optimize housing consumption, households may exhibit certain residential mobility behaviour. This may be between tenures (renter to owner) or within tenures (owner to owner, renter to renter). Residential mobility within urban space, though considered a natural course in the life cycle of urban dwellers, significantly contributes to the spatial character of urban space. Human life events such as change in marital status, family size expansion, aging process, health challenges and changes in household income- to mention a few, are some reasons why households change residences within the urban area (De Groot, Mulder, Das, & Manting, 2011). Inherent in these factors are push and pull pressures which households may respond to through residential mobility behaviour. Enugu metropolis, like most cities in Nigeria, has a rental dominated housing market (NBS, 2017) and a largely youthful population which may serve as triggers for rapid household residential mobility behaviour when compared to a predominantly aging population in an owner/occupier dominated housing market (Viola and Laferrere, 2012; Hamizah, Abdul, Nurwati and Kausar, 2015).

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