ABSTRACT
Almost everyone moves home at some time in their lives. Together with experiences such as the birth of a child, the death of a relative, marriage, starting a new school and finding fresh employment, moving to a new house is a relatively infrequent but everyday occurrence which, whilst commonplace, can also have wide-ranging ramifications for all concerned. Migration not only affects individuals, and in some cases fundamentally alters people’s lives, but large scale population movement also has implications for wider society, changing population distributions and placing demands on housing, labour markets and services. Such consequences stem most obviously from mass flows of refugees or migrants fleeing events such as famine or war, but even short distance movement within national boundaries can have significant and wide ranging impacts (Black and Robinson, 1993). Moving home is also a complex process, undertaken for a large number of different reasons, and causing many potential difficulties or disruptions which have varied effects on members of a mobile household.
