Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe

The survey Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe – Modern Mobile Living and its Relation to Quality of Life (JobMob) is an international comparative research project which focuses on the prevalence, causes and consequences of job-related spatial mobility in Europe.

The first wave of the survey was conducted in 2007 in six countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Spain and Switzerland. 7,220 randomly selected people were interviewed. Funded by the European Commission, the study was implemented by researchers from the participating countries as part of a collaborative network. The project was coordinated by Prof. Norbert Schneider, then professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, now director of the BiB.

The objective of the first wave of the survey was to describe the prevalence of job-related spatial mobility (e.g. daily long-distance commuting, weekly commuting and relocating) on the basis of representative data. Further to this, the aim is to gain detailed information on the causes of job-related spatial mobility and its implications for personal well-being, family life and social participation.

A second wave (n=1,735) was conducted in Germany in 2010 as well as in France, Spain and Switzerland in 2011 and 2012. Aside from re-interviewing the participants from the first wave, an additional survey (oversampling) was conducted in Germany and France (n=499) on highly mobile persons who were interviewed in the first wave. The second wave features a collection of extensive retrospective data about spatial mobility, employment, partnership and family. Furthermore, it includes new contents with topics such as social integration, volunteerism and social mobility.