Mobilities and the Life Course (EN)

Mobilities and the Life Course: Interactions and Socio-Demographic Dynamics

This call for papers aims to explore the links between different forms of mobility — international, residential, daily or seasonal — and key life events such as birth, leaving the parental home, entering a relationship, separation, widowhood, and so on. Since the 1960s, family transformations — marked by increasing conjugal instability and the diversification of cohabitation arrangements — have contributed to both a rise and a growing complexity in mobility, particularly residential. These mobilities are also shaped by broader societal changes and crises (economic, health-related, etc.). Changes in the labour and housing markets have made residential trajectories less linear. Unemployment, for example, may delay young adults leaving the parental home, push individuals to move for work, encourage seasonal migration, or lead to settlement in rural or foreign regions. The rise in property prices has forced many to move away from city centres or abandon mobility altogether, often at the cost of their living conditions or family formation plans. The effects of these life events vary depending on age, gender and social class. A separation, for instance, will have different residential implications for a single woman, a wealthy man, or an older couple who are usually homeowners.

Conversely, migration or immobility can influence family structures and dynamics. Age, sex, social position and marital status strongly shape migration patterns and may alter the demographic composition of both origin and destination areas, influencing processes such as population ageing or social segregation. Temporary migrations, returning to the parental home after a break-up or job loss, and non-cohabiting couples all contribute to the reshaping of family structures and gender relations.

Studying the effects of migration on fertility raises questions about behavioural adaptation: do migrants maintain the norms of their environment of origin, or do they adopt the behaviours of the host society? This line of inquiry can be extended to other socio-demographic behaviours such as divorce, cohabitation, and employment. Residential immobility may deter couples from having additional children, delay separations, or force intergenerational cohabitation due to housing constraints.

Lastly, migration has been insufficiently studied in relation to health and mortality. Do migrants have different health profiles than non-migrants? Does their access to healthcare vary depending on where they live? The potential role of migrant selection should be examined, particularly in connection with spatial patterns in health and mortality in sending and receiving areas. Migration also plays a role in the spread of infectious diseases, while being influenced by health crises, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasing life expectancy has enabled retirees to pursue new residential projects, raising questions about mobility in old age and responses to dependency and ageing.

Papers may address a wide range of socio-demographic themes, provided that the interaction with mobility remains central. This interaction may be approached in both directions: the impact of mobility on a socio-demographic phenomenon, and/or vice versa. The call is intentionally broad in terms of study areas (Global North or South), geographical scales (local, regional, national or international), and timeframes (historical or contemporary).

The "Revue Quetelet/Quetelet Journal" (RQJ) is a bilingual (English and French) thematic journal of the Centre for Demographic Research of Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), in Belgium. You must register (as an "author") before submitting your manuscript. The Quetelet Journal does not charge article processing fees or submission fees. Authors retain unrestricted copyright of their article (CC-BY-SA). We recommend reading the Guidelines for Authors.

Papers should be submitted no later than 1 November 2025. Articles will be published on a rolling basis throughout 2026 as they become ready. For further information, please contact Thierry Eggerickx (thierry.eggerickx@uclouvain.be) or Jean-Paul Sanderson (jean-paul.sanderson@uclouvain.be).