The Job Crunch and Falling Housing Market Cocktail

Even before the recession struck last year, there was ample evidence of an increase in “long-distance” coupling due to work demands – and also crucially, I think, due to a belief or trust that technology can lessen the feelings of separate-ness.

A Time Magazine article from late 2007 noted “Commuter marriages, in which couples live apart for long stretches, are multiplying. Their number jumped 30%, to 3.6 million, from 2000 to 2005, according to an analysis of census figures by Greg Guldner of the Center for the Study of Long-Distance Relationships, a Web-based clearinghouse for research in this nascent field. While military deployments, migratory jobs and economic need have long forced couples around the world to live apart, in America today, it is more often the woman’s career that drives the separation. Technologies like instant messaging and Skype make the parting easier by facilitating virtual pillow talk that keeps couples in touch.”

Here’s some recent data on how couples living separately continues to increase, though perhaps more out of financial necessity now than a couple with two red-hot careers to nurture.

The recession is complicating job hunts—and the lives—of two-career couples, particularly when one lands an offer out of town. The search for employment is forcing more couples into long-distance relationships.

A recent survey of 1,450 successful job seekers conducted by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that 18.2% relocated for positions in the second quarter, up from 11.4% a year earlier.

Faced with a choice between the financial hardship of unemployment or a relocating for a job, more couples are going for a third option and choosing long-term separations. The issue is more common during this recession than in past downturns because of the prevalence of two-career couples. In 2008, 51.4% of married households had both spouses working, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Indeed, the depressed housing market makes matters even more difficult for couples because many families can’t sell their homes, even after one spouse moves elsewhere for work. “One leaves for income and the other stays because they can’t sell their home,” says Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University.