Lifecycle stages and residential location choice in the presence of latent preference heterogeneity

The choice of residential locations is affected by both dwelling and location characteristics. Preferences for these characteristics vary with each household's requirements, traditionally attributed to the household's lifecycle stage. With a cross-sectional study that identifies lifecycle stages according to household structure, this paper offers an investigation of residential location and shows that not all components of preference heterogeneity can be accounted for by household structure. Latent class choice models examine household segments according to lifestyle preferences. The results reveal the degree of association between identified household lifecycle segments and estimated lifestyle latent classes. The composition of the latent structure differs for each lifecycle segment; income and the age of the head of household strongly affect housing preferences, but do not lead to the same latent class structure for households at different lifecycle stages.