“…everywhere she went I had to tag along beside her”: Family, life course, and everyday mobility in England since the 1940s

Abstract

Mobility is one of the most important constituents of everyday life, yet it is rarely studied historically and we know little of how it relates to changing family and life course constraints. Using data drawn from oral life histories, this article examines changes in everyday mobility over the past 60 years focusing both on changes over the life course and on the constraints imposed by family structures. We argue that, like residential migration, daily mobility has been closely related to the life course, with women especially affected by the constraints of motherhood and marriage. However, there is evidence that such constraints have changed over time, and that some older people today enjoy more mobility than they did at earlier life stages. We also argue that the independent mobility of children was closely related to the family structure in which they were situated, but that these constraints have changed much less over the past 60 years. The oral testimonies examined also highlight the variability of mobility experiences and the role of the individual in fashioning mobility behavior.

Keywords:

• Family
• Life course
• Everyday mobility
• England

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the ESRC for funding this research and to all the respondents for giving their time to complete questionnaires and be interviewed. Thanks also to Cait Griffith for coding and data input, to Geraldine Byrne for transcription, and to Sue Owen for additional research assistance at the end of the project.

Notes

1 The Microsoft (MS) Access database provided an effective means of organizing both numerical and textual data on the number and characteristics of moves. For further statistical analysis, these data were transferred to MS Excel and SPSS. Atlas ti allowed the storage, coding, and interrogation of textual data generated through the interviews. Sections of text were coded to key themes following a close reading of the text, and Atlas ti was used to retrieve quotations on key themes.

2 For more details, see Pooley et al. (in press).

3 All interview transcripts are currently stored in the Department of Geography, Lancaster University, UK. When current research is complete, it will likely be made publicly available through the ESRC data archive.