Vacancy Chain Analysis

Vacancy chain analysis is a system model of mobility, introduced by Harrison White in his 1970 book Chains of Opportunity, that follows opportunities rather than people. When a unit such as a house or a job is freed and filled by someone who in turn vacates another unit, a chain of moves cascades through the system until it ends with a new entrant or a unit leaving the stock. By treating vacancies as the things that move — through an absorbing Markov chain — the framework explains how a single new dwelling or retirement can ripple into many household relocations or promotions.