The regional dimension of intergenerational proximity in the Netherlands

Previous research has shown the impact of individual characteristics on intergenerational proximity but has largely ignored the regional dimension of such proximity. In this paper, we examine the regional variation in intergenerational proximity in the Netherlands. We address this issue by incorporating indicators of urbanisation and regional culture in an analysis of the likelihood that adult children live within daily reach (within a distance of 5 or 20km) of their older parents. We also depict the spatial variation in intergenerational proximity in maps. Employing logistic regression on nearly 5 million parent-child dyads extracted from register data, we find that the degree of urbanisation of the residential municipality of the two generations shows contrasting effects: a positive association for the degree of urbanisation of the parents' municipality, a negative association for the children's. Older parents living in areas in which more conservative and collectivist attitudes prevail are more likely to have their adult children living close to them. After accounting for the municipality dummies, the explanatory power of the model improves considerably. However, substantial spatial variation in intergenerational proximity remains largely unexplained after controlling for the regional characteristics. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd