Immobility and insecure labour markets: An active response to precarious employment

Abstract

This article explores how people experience and respond to a post-industrial labour market context through residential (im)mobility. Focusing on places that are represented through a range of official measures as ‘declining’, the research explains why people may remain in weaker labour market areas, rather than moving to places that could offer greater employment opportunities. The case study approach focused on two urban neighbourhoods in England, Nearthorpe (Sheffield) and Eastland (Grimsby). The article draws on repeated, in-depth, biographical interviews with 25 individuals across 18 households. The research shows that stability of residence was a necessary counterbalance to a low-paid and insecure work context. Immobility facilitated access to a range of informal support networks. However, immobility was not simply a by-product of lack of mobility or a passive state. This research conceptualises immobility as an active process in which participants engaged in different forms of adaptation and resistance in the face of changing labour market conditions.