ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 made a strong case for continuing to recognize employment factors as the principal driving force behind migration at scales beyond residential mobility (Chapter 6). Nonetheless, it also argued that even moves categorized as “employment migration” may be inadequately served by such designation. Whilst vital and necessary, economic factors relating to paid work rarely express fully specific relocations. For a richer, less monochrome and more three-dimensional representation, other priorities and considerations must enter the equation (Halfacree 2004a; Stockdale 2014). Such factors often come to the fore with specific life course stages, such as when there is a need for a bigger house when children are born. In other words, placing migration within the biographical life course context frequently requires engaging with more-than-economic as well as economic priorities. Chapter 6 has dealt with some of these, expressed in relocations for housing, family and neighborhood matters. Additionally, and certainly within supposed consumer societies (Baudrillard 1998), the more-than-economic expressed by aspired lifestyle is entangled in migration decisions. This chapter illustrates where it becomes pre-eminent within a move.
