Leaving home: Independence, togetherness and income

Advances in Life Course Research 15 (2010) 147–160

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Leaving home: Independence, togetherness and income Maria Iacovou * Institute for Social and Economic Research, Essex University, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 8 June 2010 Received in revised form 1 October 2010 Accepted 2 October 2010

This paper examines the factors influencing young people’s decision to leave the parental home, focusing on the role of income: the young person’s own income, and the income of his or her parents. It takes a comparative perspective, comparing countries across the preenlargement European Union. In all groups of countries, the young person’s own income is positively associated with the probability of leaving home. However, the effects of parental income are more complex. Everywhere, higher parental income is associated with a lower likelihood of leaving home to live with a partner at young ages, and a greater likelihood at older ages. But whereas in Nordic countries, higher parental incomes accelerate homeleaving to partnership at all ages after the late teens, this effect is not seen until a much later age in Southern Europe, and not until after age 35 for Southern European men. This is consistent with existing theory about cross-country differences in the nature of family ties, suggesting that parents’ preferences for independence versus family closeness differ between countries, and contribute (together with differences in young people’s socioeconomic situations) to the widely differing patterns of living arrangements observed across Europe. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Youth transitions Leaving home Incomes Family Europe

1. Introduction The home-leaving behaviour of young people is interesting for a number of reasons: it is one of the main, and often one of the first, components of the transition to adulthood (Schizzerotto & Lucchini, 2004); and it has implications for important areas of policy, such as the demand for housing (Ermisch & Di Salvo, 1997) and the risk of poverty among young people (Aassve, Iacovou, Davia, & Mazzucco, 2007). There is a large literature on many aspects of homeleaving. In this paper, I focus on one area which has not been studied as extensively as some others: the effect of income on the home-leaving decision. I consider the incomes both of the young person him- or herself, and of his or her parents. Both of these are likely to play a role in the home-leaving decision, but the direction

* Tel.: +44 1206 873994; fax: +44 1206 873151. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1040-2608/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.alcr.2010.10.004

of this effect is not clear a priori. Young people who have higher incomes themselves, or whose parents have higher incomes, are more likely to be able to leave the parental home (in terms of being able to afford rent or mortgage payments, utility bills, and other expenses associated with independent living); however, this will only be translated into action if young people and/or their parents value independence from the family of origin sufficiently highly that they are prepared to spend money on achieving this independence. Indeed, if either or both generations value family ‘‘togetherness’’ more highly than they value intergenerational independence, they may devote their resources towards prolonging co-residence (for example, parents may give cash allowances to co-resident children, or provide in-kind benefits such as clothing, meals or the use of a car). This would result in a negative relationship between income and young adults’ propensity to leave home. The relative values which people place on ‘‘togetherness’’ and ‘‘independence’’ are not fixed: they vary between societies, and may change over time. This paper

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is based on data from 13 Western European countries, and as such, provides an opportunity (a) to examine how the relationships between home-leaving and income vary across Europe, but also (b) to draw inferences from these findings about the nature of family ties in the different parts of Europe. The factors affecting the home-leaving decision may also vary by gender, given the typical differences in men’s and women’s life trajectories during their twenties and thirties. Men’s and women’s behaviours are therefore examined separately throughout the paper. 2. Background 2.1. Welfare state typologies Before discussing the literature on home-leaving behaviour, it will be useful to start with a brief review of the literature on welfare state typologies, since the paper draws on these typologies both in its theoretical foundations and in its execution. The seminal work in this area is that of Esping-Andersen (1990, 1999): his threefold typology of welfare states consists of:  A ‘social-democratic’ regime type, characterised by high levels of state support and an emphasis on the individual rather than the family, typified by the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands.1  A ‘conservative’, or ‘corporatist’, regime type, characterised by an emphasis on insurance-based benefits providing support for the family rather than the individual, and typified by the continental European states of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg. Esping-Andersen also assigns the Southern European countries to this group.  A ‘liberal’ regime type, typified by a modest level of welfare state provision and a reliance on means-tested benefits, exemplified by the US, and to a lesser extent by the UK and Ireland. Several commentators (Ferrera, 1996; Liebfried, 1992; and others) have argued that the Southern European countries constitute a regime type in themselves, rather than belonging to the ‘conservative’ group; EspingAndersen (1999) argued himself that this distinction may usefully be made for certain purposes. The arguments on this issue are mixed (Arts & Gelissen, 2002) with several scholars arguing that structurally, the Southern welfare states are not dissimilar to those of the ‘conservative’ group of countries. However, the Southern countries do form an empirically distinct grouping on a wide range of social and economic indicators, and thus are often defined separately for the purposes of empirical research. In fact, it is not clear that a typology based on welfare regimes is the most appropriate basis on which to study

1 Esping-Andersen acknowledges that the Netherlands forms something of a hybrid case, having characteristics in common with both the social-democratic and the conservative groups. In terms of living arrangements of the type discussed in this paper, the Netherlands falls clearly into the social-democratic group.

living arrangements and family formation. Berthoud and Iacovou (2004) argue that in terms of family structure, a typology based on religious affiliation or geography performs as well or better than one based on welfare regimes. Reher (1998), in his examination of the strength of family ties across Western Europe, also uses a geographically based typology. This consists of a ‘‘Northern’’ cluster (Scandinavia, the UK, the Low Countries and [much of] Germany and Austria); and a ‘‘Southern’’ cluster (the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal). He notes that Ireland is an indeterminate case, being geographically Northern, but having much more in common with the Mediterranean countries in terms of family structures. In this paper, I divide countries into three groups: a ‘‘Nordic’’ cluster, consisting of the Scandinavian countries plus the Netherlands; a ‘‘Northern’’ cluster, consisting of the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and Austria; and a ‘‘Southern’’ cluster, consisting of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, plus Ireland. 2.2. Family ties across Europe Most of the hypotheses developed in this paper are based on the idea that the strength of family ties varies across Europe. Reher (1998) argues that Northern Europe is characterised by ‘‘weak’’ family ties, early home-leaving, and a sense of social rather than familial solidarity with elderly or weak members of society, while the Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe are characterised by ‘‘strong’’ family ties, later home-leaving, and a more family based sense of solidarity. The usefulness of these arguments is confirmed by other scholars writing about family structure and family ties (Alesina & Giuliano, 2007; Duranton, Rodrı´guez-Poseb, & Sandall, 2007). As well as being interested in cross-country differences in family ties, we are also interested in possible intergenerational differences, since this paper considers the role of both young people’s incomes and those of their parents. The literature in this area is very limited, but there is some evidence that attitudes are converging across Europe, with smaller between-country differences among younger people than their parents. Rosina and Fraboni (2004) find that although marriage remains the predominant route out of the parental home in Italy, cohabitation is becoming more prevalent and is set to increase further. Billari (2005) investigates trends in a range of indicators, concluding that there is limited evidence of general convergence in attitudes and behaviours, but that on a number of indicators, convergence is apparent. 2.3. Literature on young people’s living arrangements and home-leaving behaviour Many studies on home-leaving are based on data from a single country: the United States (Avery, Goldscheider & Speare, 1992; Goldscheider, Thornton, & Young-DeMarco, 1993; Hughes, 2003, and many others), Britain (Ermisch, 1996; Kerckhoff & Macrae, 1992; Murphy & Wang, 1998), Canada (Mitchell, Wister, & Gee, 2000), Australia (Young, 1996), Sweden (Bernhardt, Ga¨hler, & Goldscheider, 2005;

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Nilsson & Strandh, 1999; Lauster, 2006) and Italy (Aassve, Billari, & Ongaro, 2001; Manacorda & Moretti, 2006). An increasing number of cross-national studies also exist, though these are primarily descriptive in nature. Kiernan (1986) studies the age of leaving home in six Western European countries. Jones (1995) reviews a number of mainly single-country studies, looking not only at departures from the parental home, but also at returns. Holdsworth (2000) compares Britain and Spain as representatives of Northern and Southern Europe. Mulder, Clark, and Wagner (2002) compare home-leaving in the US, the Netherlands and West Germany; and Yi, Coale, Choe, Zhiwu, and Li (1994) compare age-specific rates of leaving home for China, Japan, South Korea, the US, France and Sweden. Billari, Philipov, and Baiza´n (2001) use data from the Family and Fertility Survey to analyse home-leaving patterns across 17 countries of Eastern and Western Europe; Billari and Liefbroer (2010) use data from the European Social Survey to compare life-course transitions, including home-leaving, across four regions of Europe. Iacovou (2002) compares living arrangements among 12 EU countries and the US; Aassve, Billari, Mazzucco, and Ongaro (2002) focus on the effects of employment and education, again across the pre-enlargement EU; while Mandic (2008) also includes Eastern European countries in her analysis. All studies which relate to the EU share the common finding that home-leaving occurs substantially earlier in the Northern countries than in the South.2 Several reasons have been advanced to explain this, generally focusing on factors which make independent living less affordable in the South: the scarcity of affordable rented accommodation (Martı´nez-Granado & Ruiz-Castillo, 2002); the lack of a well-functioning mortgage market (Martins & Villanueva, 2006); and the relatively high rates of unemployment and the relatively low wages for those who do have jobs (Aassve et al., 2002). 2.4. Home-leaving and income Several of the above studies examine the role of income as a determinant of home-leaving. Turning first to the incomes of young people themselves, the majority of studies find that young people with higher incomes are more likely to leave the parental home. Aassve et al. (2002) find that in the majority of countries they cover, young people with higher incomes are more likely to leave the parental home; having a job also tends to be associated with leaving home. Avery et al. (1992) record similar findings for the United States. Hughes (2003) finds that higher incomes are associated particularly with marriage (and to a lesser extent with cohabiting and living alone) compared with living with parents or roommates. Whittington and Peters (1996) point out that the impact of personal income may differ for men and women, particularly where the partnership decision is concerned:

2 Those countries which include Ireland invariably concur that as far as home-leaving behaviour is concerned, Ireland has more in common with the Mediterranean countries than with its Northern neighbours.

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if partnership is likely to be followed by parenthood, and if new mothers will be taking time out of the labour market, then men’s earnings may be more important than those of women. They do indeed find that personal financial resources are more important for young men than for young women (although parental resources are more important for women). Because young people’s incomes are very much related to their employment status; some studies take steps to separate out the effects of income per se from the effects of other, but related, factors. Ermisch and Di Salvo (1997) use test scores to identify young people’s ‘permanent income’, finding that income has a significant positive effect on exiting the parental home to live alone or with friends (men) and to live with friends or with a partner (women). Net of this effect, not having a job has the effect (for men) of increasing the chance of living alone or with friends, but decreasing the chance of living with a partner; for women, joblessness increases the chance of exiting the parental home to all destinations. Aassve et al. (2001) and McElroy (1995) use predicted wages rather than employment status as an explanatory variable, arguing that since many young people leave home in anticipation of finding a job, employment status is jointly determined with residential status. Both find that predicted wages are positively associated with leaving home; net of this, Aassve et al. (2001) find that for Italian men, higher levels of education are associated with a higher probability of leaving home, while for women, it is low levels of education which accelerate home-leaving. In summary, although the relationship between young people’s incomes and their likelihood of leaving home does vary by gender and by destination, most studies find that young people with higher levels of income are more likely to leave home. The evidence is more mixed in the case of parental income. Avery et al. (1992) point out that while higher parental income may be used to subsidise children’s moves out of the parental home, and to purchase privacy for parents, better-off parents may have more spacious and comfortable homes which young adults are more reluctant to leave. Additionally, if parents actually value having their children living with them, parents with more resources will be able to use their resources to encourage their adult children to remain coresident for longer. The notion of cultural variations in the degree to which people value ‘‘independence’’ and ‘‘togetherness’’ has already been discussed. Manacorda and Moretti (2006) draw on this literature in their discussion of home-leaving in Italy, showing that increased parental resources are associatedwith a lower propensity for sons to leave home; they argue that this is an indication of a preference among Italian parents for co-residence with their adult children, with parents using a proportion of their resources to make transfers to their children which prolong the period of coresidence. Holdsworth (2000) finds evidence to support this: in Britain, having a highly educated father (which is associated with higher parental income) is associated

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with a higher probability of leaving for non-partnership reasons (though a lower probability of leaving for partnership); in Spain, however, having a highly educated father is associated with later home-leaving for any reason. Most of the other studies examining the effect of parental income relate to a single country, and the evidence is rather mixed. For the US, Goldscheider and DaVanzo (1986) and Michael and Tuma (1985) find that children from more affluent homes, or those with bettereducated parents, leave home later. Other authors (Buck & Scott, 1993; Wister & Burch, 1989) find that find that socioeconomic status has little effect on home-leaving. Those which distinguish between different destinations on leaving home tend to find that the relationship between parental resources and home-leaving varies according to the route out of home: Avery et al. (1992) find that parental resources have a positive effect on leaving for premarital independence, but a negative effect on leaving for marriage. Aquilino (1991) and Kerckhoff and Macrae (1992) find the earlier home-leaving of those with highly educated mothers, and fathers in higher occupational categories, is due to an increased likelihood of young people from these backgrounds leaving home for education. A number of US-based studies have also found that the effect of parental income varies with age. Waite and Spitze (1981) argue that parents may use their resources to delay marriage for children at younger ages, but to accelerate marriage at older ages. Avery et al. (1992) find that parental income does indeed deter home-leaving among the youngest group (aged 15–19) and accelerates homeleaving among the oldest age group (25–29). Whittington and Peters (1996) find a that parental income has a negative effect before age 19 and a positive effect thereafter; Mulder and Clark (2000) also find a positive effect between parental income and age. 2.5. Destinations on leaving home Many of the papers already mentioned have pointed to the importance of distinguishing between different destinations on leaving home. Goldscheider and DaVanzo (1985, 1986) find that young people who leave to ‘semi-autonomous’ destinations have different characteristics than those who leave for ‘autonomous’ destinations. Clark and Mulder (2000) distinguish between young people who move to rented and owned accommodation. Ermisch and Di Salvo (1997) distinguish between those moving out to live alone; with a partner; or with friends or unrelated others. Kerckhoff and Macrae (1992) distinguish between leaving to study; for work; for marriage; to gain independence; and because of family friction. All these studies find that some of the determinants of leaving home vary according to the reason for leaving home. In this paper I distinguish three destinations on leaving home: living as a single person; living with a partner; and leaving for educational purposes. The importance of distinguishing a separate category for education is highlighted by the findings of Aquilino (1991) and

Kerckhoff and Macrae (1992), and is emphasised by the results presented later in this paper.3

3. Hypotheses 3.1. Differences between groups of countries I assume that individuals of all generations, in all countries across Europe, assign a value both to their own independence or autonomy, and to a notion of family cohesiveness, or ‘‘togetherness’’. The relative importance of these preferences varies between countries (Reher, 1998), with independence valued relatively more highly in the Northern countries, and family ‘‘togetherness’’ valued relatively more highly in the Southern countries. In relation to the living arrangements of young adults, families in Northern countries will place a higher value on young adults achieving residential independence at an earlier age, while families in Southern countries will place a higher value on maintaining co-residence for longer. These differences in attitudes will also be driven by prevailing social norms: in countries where early homeleaving is the norm, people will attach a greater importance to early residential autonomy for young adults, simply because they perceive that leaving home early is the usual way to do things; the earlier the usual age of home-leaving, the more pronounced this preference will be. If individuals with a higher level of financial resources devote some of these resources to achieving the type of family situation which best fits with their preferences, this leads to the following hypothesis: H1a. The relationship between home-leaving and the incomes of both parents and young people, will be largest (most positive, or least negative) in the Nordic countries and smallest (least positive, or most negative) in the Southern European countries. This hypothesis is based only on relative preferences. Reher (1998) suggests that the preference for independence is absolutely stronger in the Northern and Nordic countries, and the preference for togetherness is absolutely stronger in the Southern countries, in which case a stronger form of the hypothesis would hold: H1b. The relationship between home-leaving and income will be positive in the Nordic and Northern groups of countries, and negative in the Southern group of countries.

3 I also estimated models distinguishing between exits for marriage and cohabitation. A twofold case may be made for this. First, there are enormous cross-country differences in the incidence of cohabitation versus marriage (Iacovou, 2002; Kiernan, 2000 and others) which may be reflected in the determinants of home-leaving; second, there is a debate (Hughes, 2003; Smock, Manning, & Porter, 2005) on whether recent increases in non-marital cohabitation are attributable to a lack of resources among young adults who might otherwise marry. In fact, there proved to be no significant differences in any country group between the determinants of exits to marriage and cohabitation, and therefore the simpler threefold specification is presented.

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3.2. Inter-generational differences Between-country differences in income coefficients reflect cultural differences in relative preferences for independence and ‘‘togetherness’’. However, there is no reason a priori to expect the magnitude of these cultural differences to be the same between young adults, and their parents. In fact, as discussed earlier, there is some evidence (Billari, 2005; Rosina & Fraboni, 2004) of a convergence in attitudes over time, which leads to: H2. Cross-national differences in the relationship between home-leaving and income will be larger for the parental generation than for the generation of young adults. 3.3. Leaving home for education All departures from the parental home are likely to involve some cost; there may be extra costs involved in leaving for education, in terms of foregone earnings and in some cases tuition fees. This, together with the finding that individuals whose parents have a degree are more likely to obtain university qualifications themselves and are more likely to leave home for educational purposes (Aquilino, 1991; Kerckhoff & Macrae, 1992) leads to the prediction that parental income is likely to be more highly correlated with leaving for education than with other destinations. This is more likely to apply in the Northern and Nordic countries where it is typical to leave home for tertiary education, than in the Southern countries where students typically live with their parents while studying. H3. In the Nordic and Northern groups of countries, the relationship between home-leaving and parental income will be stronger in respect of departures for education than in respect of other destinations out of the parental home. 3.4. Gender The lives of men and women are likely to unfold differently in the decades following departure from the parental home (Whittington & Peters, 1996). Men are likely to spend the majority of this time either working for money, or trying to work for money. Women may spend at least some of this time out of the labour force caring for children. These differences are not as clear-cut as they once were. Nevertheless, they still apply to some extent: young men are likely to spend more of the next two decades relying on their own incomes than women. H4a. The relationship between home-leaving and a young person’s own income will be larger (more positive, or less negative) for young men than for young women. The difference between the sexes in the importance of one’s own income is likely to be greater in societies where the differences between the labour supply and wage rates of men and women are larger; where marital separation is less common; and where a greater proportion of the income of prime-aged people comes from earnings. These factors are all more pronounced in Southern Europe. Hence:

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H4b. This difference between the sexes will be largest in the Southern countries, and smallest in the Nordic countries. 3.5. Differences by age Aforementioned studies (Avery et al., 1992; Mulder & Clark, 2000; Whittington & Peters, 1996) have found that parental income tends to deter home-leaving among younger groups and to accelerate it among older groups. These studies are based on data from the U.S., where homeleaving is typically early, and find that the effect of parental income is negative prior to the early twenties, and positive thereafter. However, the age at which this turning point occurs is likely to vary between country groups: parental perceptions of the ages at which it is ‘‘too early’’ to leave home, or ‘‘too late’’ to be still living with one’s parents, will differ according to prevailing norms. We may therefore hypothesise: H5a. The relationship between home-leaving and parental income will vary with age, with better-off parents using their resources to delay home-leaving among their offspring at younger ages, and to accelerate it at older ages. H5b. The turning points in this relationship will occur at younger ages in the Nordic countries and at older ages in the Southern European countries.

4. Data and descriptive statistics The data used come from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), a set of large-scale longitudinal studies set up and funded by the European Union. This data set has the advantage of being a household survey (and thus collecting information on all members of respondents’ households, which is particularly useful in the analysis of living arrangements). Because the same questions are asked in each country, and questionnaires are inputharmonised, results are directly comparable across countries. The first wave of the ECHP was collected in 1994, and covered 12 of the then 15 member states: Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the UK, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Three countries joined late: Austria in 1995, Finland in 1996 and Sweden in 1997. The last year of data collection was 2001, making eight waves of data available for most countries, and correspondingly fewer for late joiners. Two countries have been omitted from the analysis in this paper: Luxembourg because of an extremely small sample, and Sweden because the Swedish data are not longitudinal. Table 1 motivates the later analysis by demonstrating substantial and interesting cross-country variations in home-leaving behaviour. It tabulates the percentages of young people still living in their parents’ home, for three age groups: 20–23, 24–26, and 27–30. Figures are presented separately for young men and young women, and show a clear difference between the sexes, with young men considerably more likely still to be living with their

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Table 1 Percentage of young people still living in their parents’ home. Aged 20–23

Finland Denmark Netherlands UK Belgium France Germany Austria Ireland Portugal Spain Italy Greece

Aged 24–26

Aged 27–30

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

60 60 62 69 92 81 85 86 94 93 97 96 90

36 34 45 50 82 67 67 66 84 86 92 92 77

19 15 28 42 65 50 56 59 73 78 87 89 83

11 6 9 22 42 33 33 39 60 68 75 74 57

13 6 9 20 31 24 34 44 44 57 62 68 65

4 2 2 9 12 12 16 18 33 41 47 45 30

Note: based on all individuals of relevant ages present in ECHP data 1994– 2001; weighted.

parents in all countries and in all age groups. This difference is related to the to the age differences observed between men and women in relationships: in most countries, men are around two years older than their female partners, whereas in Greece the age difference is larger, at around five years (Iacovou, 2002). A North–South gradient in home-leaving behaviour is evident, with young people in the Southern European

countries plus Ireland most likely to be living at home, and those in the Nordic countries the least likely. These crosscountry differences are clear for both age groups but are perhaps most startling for the older age group. Of those aged 27–30, only 6% of Danish men are still living at home, compared to 68% of Italian men; only 2% of Danish and Dutch women are still living at home, compared to 47% of Spanish women. Table 2 presents additional descriptive statistics, broken down by the Nordic-Northern-Southern grouping outlined in Section 2 and used in the remainder of the paper. The figures in this table are based on those young people aged 18–35 and still living in their parents’ home, since this is the group of interest in the analysis of homeleaving behaviour. For clarity of interpretation, the small number of young people who were living both with their parents and with either a partner or with one or more of their own children, have been excluded from the sample, here and in all subsequent analysis. The top row of Table 2 presents the percentages leaving home each year, which are highest in the Nordic group at 14% for men and 19% for women, and lowest for the Southern group, at 5% for men and 6% for women. Destinations on leaving home also vary. In the Nordic countries, the most common routes out of the parental home are as singles or for partnership, but a significant proportion – 25% of men and 31% of women – also leave for educational purposes. In the Northern countries, just under

Table 2 Descriptive statistics. Nordic

Northern

Southern

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

% Still living at home at time t Of those, % leaving home by t + 1b

26.9 14.4

17.2 19.3

43.5 9.6

28.8 14.4

70.1 4.5

56.4 5.5

% of those who leave As singles For partnership For educational purposes

38.2 36.7 25.2

29.7 39.7 30.7

41.4 49.6 9.0

36.5 53.6 10.0

28.8 68.2 3.0

21.7 72.3 6.0

Means of explanatory variables Own income centile Parental income centile Age Unemployed Inactive In education Lone parent familyc Stepfamilyd Rooms per person Parents: a degreee Parents: secondary educationf Father’s age at marriage Mother’s age at marriage Mother has a job Number of observationsg

55.3 43.7 21.9 0.09 0.41 0.18 0.03 1.70 0.21 0.07 25.6 23.4 0.52 7849

45.7 47.0 20.8 0.05 0.02 0.57 0.14 0.03 1.70 0.24 0.09 26.0 23.6 0.56 5150

53.9 47.4 23.6 0.14 0.26 0.16 0.05 1.72 0.30 0.11 25.1 22.4 0.59 24572

44.3 51.2 22.2 0.08 0.05 0.39 0.15 0.04 1.69 0.31 0.10 25.1 22.5 0.60 16688

46.4 49.1 24.6 0.24 0.26 0.16 0.01 1.36 0.11 0.04 26.7 23.3 0.29 55713

36.8 51.2 23.7 0.20 0.07 0.38 0.15 0.01 1.35 0.13 0.05 26.8 23.4 0.31 40977

a

Notes: a Based on weighted sample of all 18-35-year-olds present in the sample, excluding those living with both parents and a partner and/or their own children. b Based on weighted sample of 18–35 year olds living with parents at time t, and excluding those living with a partner and/or their own child/ren. c ‘‘Lone parent family’’ and ‘‘stepfamily’’ refer to the young person’s family of origin. d ‘‘Lone parent family’’ and ‘‘stepfamily’’ refer to the young person’s family of origin. e One or both parents has a degree. f Neither parent has a degree; at least one parent has secondary education. g Unweighted.

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half of men and just over half of women leaving home for partnership; leaving home as a single is more common than in the Nordic countries, and leaving for educational purposes is less common. Finally, in the Southern countries, the predominant route out of the parental home, accounting for 68% of departures by men, and 72% for women, is partnership. Income is operationalised in centile points (see next section). The difference of about ten points between the average centile positions of men and women in the sample partly reflects gender differences in incomes, but it also reflects the fact that the young men in the sample are somewhat older than the women, due to later homeleaving among males. 5. Methods 5.1. Multinomial logit regressions The analysis which follows is based on young people aged between 18 and 35 who are present in the sample in two consecutive years (1994 and 1995, 1995 and 1996, and so on) and who are living at home in the first of these two years.4 Three sets of multivariate estimates are presented in this paper, both of which estimate the probability of a young person having left home by the second year of the two-year period. The first treats all departures from the parental home as a single category – a young person either does or does not leave home in a given year. In this case, a logit model is used. The second set of estimates distinguishes between three different destinations on leaving home: leaving as a single person; leaving in order to live with a spouse or partner; and leaving for educational purposes.5 The third set of estimates is identical to the second, but with the addition of a set of interactions between parental income and the age of the child, in order to investigate whether the effect of parental income varies by age. The estimation technique used is a multinomial logit regression – an extension of the ordinary logistic regression, designed to cope with multiple outcomes rather than the simple dichotomous outcomes for which logistic regressions are designed. Where a simple dichotomous outcome is specified, the multinomial logit model is identical to the logistic model; where a larger number of outcomes is specified, the model is estimated differently, but the coefficients may be interpreted in exactly the same way. Mathematically, the multinomial logit model may be written as follows. Young people living with their parents

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at time t are faced with the choice between time t and time t + 1 to remain living at home with their parents (destination d0), or to move away from their parents’ home to one of a set of possible destinations [d1. . .dD]. The utility of young person i under each of these possible choices is given by 0

tþ1 Uid ¼ bd Zit þ etid

(1)

tþ1 where Uid

denotes the (unobserved) utility of individual i under choice d measured at time t + 1, Zit is a vector of characteristics of the child and his or her family measured at time t, bd is a set of coefficients relating the individual’s characteristics to his or her utility in state d, and etid is an independent and identically distributed error term with a Weibull distribution (McFadden, 1973). The individual makes the choice which maximises expected utility, i.e. makes choice dmax where    Uidmax ¼ max½Ui0 . . . UiD .

The probability of observing individual i making choice Q may be written as 0

ebQ Zi Prðd ¼ Q Þ ¼ PD b0d Z i d¼0 e

(2)

5.2. Testing differences between coefficients Some of the hypotheses in this paper, for example the hypothesis relating to differences between the effects of parental and young people’s incomes, are appropriately tested by making statistical comparisons between different coefficients in the same regression. This is easily achieved using standard post-estimation commands in STATA. However, other hypotheses (for example, those relating to differences between groups of countries, or between men and women) are more complicated to test, because they involve comparisons between coefficients from different regressions. These differences have been tested using the ‘‘suest’’ (seemingly unrelated estimation) procedure in STATA. It should be pointed out that not all the hypotheses relating to differences between country groups require equality of coefficients to be rejected via a formal statistical test. Where an effect is highly significant in one country group, but not at all significant in another, this may confirm a hypothesis of between-group differences, even though the coefficients in question may not be significantly different from one another because the coefficient is so imprecisely defined in the second country group. 5.3. Explanatory variables

4

Young people who were living both with their parents and with either a partner or with one or more of their own children, were excluded from the sample. 5 Leaving home for educational purposes is not mutually exclusive with the other three categories. However, it is important to distinguish this destination from the others, since those leaving home to study have rather different characteristics (chiefly, that they come from better-off families) than those leaving for other reasons. Home-leavers observed in education in the second year were defined as having left for education if they were living as singles in that year, and as having left for partnership if they were living with a partner.

The covariates of greatest interest in these regressions are the young person’s own income and the income of his or her parents. These are derived from the measure of personal income in the ECHP, which adds together income from employment and self-employment; benefits from the state or other insurance schemes; and income from other sources such as rent, dividends and interest. Where a source of income accrues to the entire household rather

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than to one individual in the household, it is assumed to accrue to all family members equally. One adjustment is made when calculating parents’ income: where two parents are present in a family, the incomes of the parents are added together and divided by 1.5, a factor derived from the modified OECD equivalence scale (Hagenaars, de Vos, & Zaidi, 1994) and used to account for the greater needs of the additional adult present in the family. Because regressions are performed on groups of countries, within which average income levels, income distribution, and the cost of living vary from country to country, it is not appropriate to include income as measured in the currency of the home country – or even adjusted for exchange rates or purchasing power parity. Instead, a variable is included which indicates the withincountry centile in which an individual’s level of income falls. This centile indicates the position of the young person’s own income, in relation to all young people of that age group in that country, or (for parents) the position of their income in relation to the incomes of parents with coresident adult children of the age group in question. By definition, this variable has the same range (from 1 to 100) in all countries, and the same distribution. A number of alternative specifications were tried, such as quadratic and spline functions in income, but did not perform better than a linear function. As well as the two income variables, the model also includes a quadratic function in age,6 and a range of variables indicating the young person’s labour market status: the reference category is ‘‘employed or selfemployed’’; the others are ‘‘unemployed’’, ‘‘economically inactive’’ and ‘‘in education’’. In the case of young people, no variable indicating educational attainment has been included, for two reasons. First, it is notoriously difficult to compare the effects of education in an international study where average levels of educational attainment vary widely. Second, educational attainment is highly correlated with both income and age, and confounds the effects of both. The relationship with age is particularly troublesome, especially in countries (Germany, for example) where tertiary qualifications are typically not finished until the late twenties. A similar problem arises when deciding whether to include parents’ educational attainment as an explanatory variable. For the parents’ generation, the correlation with age does not pose a problem, but educational status is correlated with income, and the effects may not be easy to disentangle. This is also true of two other parental variables, which may be correlated with income and which are also likely to have their own effect on homeleaving behaviour. The first is the parents’ age at marriage (which may affect the age at which the younger generation leave home to form partnerships). The second is maternal employment. Mothers who go out to work may provide fewer in-home ‘services’, and may therefore give adult children less of an incentive to remain living at home;

6 In the third set of estimates, where interaction terms between age and parental income are included, it is necessary also to include a set of categorical variables in age.

Holdsworth (2000) finds that children of working mothers are more likely to leave home for partnership in Britain, and for ‘other reasons’ in Spain. Because the education of mothers and fathers in the same family is highly correlated, mothers’ and fathers’ educational levels are captured in two variables, the first indicating whether either parent has a degree, and the second indicating whether either parent has secondary qualifications (the reference category being less than secondary qualifications). For the same reason, parents’ age at marriage is operationalised in a single variable, which is derived from the mother’s age at marriage for women and the father’s age at marriage for men. This set of variables (maternal employment, parental education and parental age at marriage) is omitted from the first specification, and included in the second. Finally, three variables are included which reflect aspects of the home environment and which may affect the young person’s propensity to leave home. The first – the number of rooms in the parental home divided by the number of inhabitants – is designed to reflect crowding – Kerckhoff and Macrae (1992) and Buck and Scott (1993) show that crowded accommodation is associated with earlier departures from the parental home. The other two variables are living with a lone parent and living in a stepfamily – Murphy and Wang (1998), Kiernan (1992) and Aquilino (1991) find that these family types are associated with earlier home-leaving. Birth order, number of siblings and extended family status were also originally included in the model, but found to have no effect. All explanatory variables in this model are measured in time t; the outcome variable (leaving home) is measured at time t + 1. 6. Results 6.1. Treating all destinations as a single outcome Table 3 presents estimates of a simple logit model of departure from the parental home, with all observed exits from home treated as a single outcome. Results are presented separately for each group of countries, and for men and women. In both specifications, the young person’s own income is positively related to the likelihood of departure from home. This is consistent with the majority of findings discussed earlier, and applies to both young men and young women, and to all groups of countries. Major differences arise between countries, however, in the effects of parental income: it is positively associated with departures from home for men and women in Nordic and Northern countries, while in the Southern European countries (consistent with the findings of Manacorda & Moretti, 2006), the coefficient on parental income is negative and significant in the case of young men, and negative though insignificant in the case of young women. How far are these results compatible with our original hypotheses? Hypothesis 1a predicted that the relationship between home-leaving and the incomes of both parents and young people, will be largest in the Nordic countries and smallest in the Southern European countries. In the

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Table 3 Logit results, all exits from home treated as a single category. Nordic Men Specification 1 Own income (centile) Parental income (centile) Age Age squared Unemployed Inactive In education Lone parent family Stepfamily Rooms per person No. of observations Pseudo-R-squared Specification 2 Own income (centile) Parental income (centile) Age Age squared Unemployed Inactive In education Lone parent family Stepfamily Rooms per person Mother has a job Parents’ education: degree Parents’ education: sec. Parents: age at marriage No. of observations Pseudo-R-squared

Northern

Southern

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

0.281* 0.027 0.187 0.133 4188 0.077

0.010*** 0.007*** 1.223*** 0.027*** 0.039 0.718 0.099 0.201 0.800** 0.206 2967 0.091

0.004** 0.004*** 0.941*** 0.018*** 0.124 . 0.444*** 0.237** 0.452*** 0.023 16160 0.053

0.005*** 0.004*** 1.037*** 0.021*** 0.147 0.110 0.523*** 0.133 0.639*** 0.002 11442 0.049

0.006*** 0.002** 0.899*** 0.015*** 0.325*** . 0.787*** 0.104 0.504* 0.083 40973 0.075

0.006*** 0.001 0.737*** 0.013*** 0.055 0.372*** 0.633*** 0.267*** 0.159 0.073 31410 0.062

0.011*** 0.004* 1.387*** 0.028** 0.065 . 0.130 0.253 0.235 0.060 0.199 0.972*** 0.440*** 0.001 3749 0.088

0.012*** 0.005* 1.186*** 0.026*** 0.086 0.752 0.119 0.309 0.837** 0.171 0.266* 0.522** 0.490*** 0.015 2733 0.095

0.004** 0.005*** 1.059*** 0.020*** 0.060

0.006*** 0.004*** 0.978*** 0.020*** 0.184 0.000 0.542*** 0.086 0.588*** 0.038 0.089 0.287*** 0.301*** 0.025* 10150 0.052

0.005*** 0.005*** 0.909*** 0.015*** 0.340*** . 0.855*** 0.127 0.100 0.035 0.201** 0.400*** 0.019 0.035*** 36519 0.084

0.006*** 0.001 0.815*** 0.014*** 0.040 0.420*** 0.701*** 0.121 0.387 0.018 0.050 0.377*** 0.127 0.037*** 28290 0.072

0.009*** 0.006*** 1.438*** 0.029*** 0.054

0.454*** 0.239* 0.351* 0.054 0.126 0.252*** 0.086 0.011 13747 0.062

Notes: Country dummies were also included in regressions. Based on weighted sample of 18–35 year olds living with their parents at time t, and present at time t + 1, and excluding those living with a partner and/or their own child/ren. * Significance 5%. ** Significance 1%. *** Significance .1%.

case of the young person’s own income, the relationship is indeed strongest in the Nordic countries – and this difference is statistically significant – but there is no significant difference between the size of the relationship in the other two groups of countries. In the case of parental income, there is a clear gradient in coefficients from the Nordic to the Southern countries; in Specification 2, when maternal employment, parents’ education and age at marriage are controlled for, the coefficients are no longer different between the Northern and Nordic groups, but both are statistically different from the coefficients in the Southern countries. Thus, insofar as the coefficients on income denote a desire for independence over family ‘‘togetherness’’, there is a good deal of evidence for a gradient in this preference from the Nordic to the Southern countries. Hypothesis 1b (the relationship between home-leaving and income will be positive in the Nordic and Northern countries, and negative in the Southern countries) is also confirmed in the case of parental income – the coefficients for the Nordic and the Northern countries are positive, while the coefficients for the Southern countries are all negative, though not significant for women. This provides evidence that parents in the Southern countries have an absolute preference for family ‘‘togetherness’’ over inde-

pendence. However, in the case of young people, this hypothesis is not confirmed. There is evidence that the preference for independence is less marked among young people in the South than among their Nordic counterparts, but young people in all countries have a preference for independence over family togetherness. Hypothesis 2 (cross-national differences in the relationship between home-leaving and income will be larger for the parental generation than for the generation of young adults) is confirmed – there are larger cross-country differences in the case of the parental generation than in the case of the young people. This does not demonstrate on its own that attitudes towards the family are undergoing a temporal shift in the South, or that there is a convergence in attitudes between countries – this analysis has not separated out age and cohort effects, and the current generation of young adults may change their attitudes when they become parents. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate a difference in attitudes between young people and their parents in Southern countries, and it appears that this is a fruitful direction for future research. Other results from Table 3 are broadly as expected. The probability of leaving home increases with age, though at a decreasing rate. Unemployment does not appear to affect the probability of leaving home, except for men in

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to have independent effects on home-leaving, but which are also correlated with income. There is little relationship between maternal employment and home-leaving: having a mother with a job is associated with an increased probability of departure only in the case of women in Nordic countries and for men in Southern countries. Having parents with degree-level education is related to a higher probability of leaving home compared with having parents with the lowest levels of education for all groups except women in the Nordic and Northern countries, while having parents who married later is associated with a lower likelihood of leaving home in the Southern countries and also for women in the Northern countries. As expected, the inclusion of these extra variables changes the coefficients on the young person’s own income hardly at all; but it does change the coefficients on parental income in the Nordic countries somewhat: the extra variables ‘‘mop up’’ the effects of parental income to the extent that the relationship between parental income and home-leaving is now significant only at the 5% level.

Southern European countries, where it reduces the probability. Labour market inactivity has no significant effect, except for women in the Southern countries, where it increases the probability of leaving home. Being in education has little effect on the probability of leaving home in the Nordic countries; however, it is negatively associated with leaving home in the Northern and Southern countries. There are interesting cross-country differences in the effect of living in a lone-parent family. Living in a loneparent family increases the probability of leaving home in the Nordic and Northern countries; however, it decreases the probability of leaving home in the Southern countries. This may be linked to the fact that the majority of loneparent families in the Nordic and Northern countries arise via partnership splits, whereas the smaller numbers of lone-parent families in the Southern countries are more likely to arise via widowhood. Stepfamilies are also associated with an increased probability of exits from the parental home – significantly so in the Northern countries and for women in the Nordic countries. Overcrowding appears to have little effect on departures from the parental home. We turn now to the second specification, which includes an additional set of variables which are likely

6.2. Distinguishing between different destinations Table 4 presents coefficients on young people’s own incomes and the incomes of their parents, from equations

Table 4 Multinomial logit coefficients on income, distinguishing between destinations. Nordic Men Specification 1 Leave as a single Own income Parental income Leave for partnership Own income Parental income Leave for education Own income Parental income

Leave for partnership Own income Parental income Leave for education Own income Parental income

Southern

Women

Men

0.016*** 0.006*

0.019*** 0.007*

0.001 0.006***

0.003 0.011***

0.013*** 0.004

0.009* 0.005

0.010*** 0.001

0.007*** 0.002

0.002 0.012***

0.000 0.010***

0.004 0.015***

0.006 0.005

0.010*** 0.007***

0.004** 0.004***

0.005*** 0.004***

0.006*** 0.002**

0.006*** 0.001

0.004 0.012***

0.004* 0.001

0.006* 0.004

0.005*** 0.006***

0.005*** 0.003*

0.004 0.011***

All destinations treated as single outcome Own income 0.009*** Parental income 0.006*** Specification 2 Leave as a single Own income Parental income

Northern Women

Men

0.004* 0.004* 0.006*** 0.005***

0.018*** 0.005

0.019*** 0.005

0.014** 0.002

0.012** 0.005

0.008*** 0.005**

0.004 0.010**

0.002 0.007*

0.005 0.012***

0.007 0.002

0.012*** 0.005*

0.004** 0.005***

0.006*** 0.004***

0.005*** 0.005***

0.001 0.010*

All destinations treated as single outcome Own income 0.011*** Parental income 0.004*

0.001 0.005*

0.008** 0.001

Women

0.009*** 0.002 0.004*** 0.003** 0.009** 0.011***

0.009** 0.008** 0.006*** 0.001

Notes: Specification 1 omits variables on maternal employment, parents’ education and age at marriage; Specification 2 includes them. Country dummies were also included in regressions. Based on weighted sample of 18–35 years old living with their parents at time t, and present at time t + 1, and excluding those living with a partner and/or their own child/ren. * Significance 5%. ** Significance 1%. *** Significance .1%.

M. Iacovou / Advances in Life Course Research 15 (2010) 147–160

which distinguish between different destinations on leaving home: leaving as a single person, for partnership, and for education. The upper panel presents results from Specification 1, the lower panel from Specification 2. In each case, the corresponding lines from Table 3 are copied at the bottom of the table, to facilitate comparisons. Looking first at the effect of parental income, we observe that in the Nordic countries there is no significant relationship with leaving for partnership; significant effects on leaving as a single (though these disappear in Specification 2) and much stronger effects on leaving for education, although these too are slightly reduced in Specification 2. In the Northern countries, parental income is strongly associated with the decision to leave home as a single or for education, but only associated with leaving for partnership in Specification 2 for men. And in the Southern countries, the negative association between parental income and home-leaving may be broken down into a negative effect on partnership (strong for men, weaker for women); a small but generally insignificant positive effect on leaving as a single; and a positive effect (significant in the case of women) on leaving for education. Having separated the different destinations on leaving home, we may now test Hypothesis 3 (In the Nordic and Northern countries, the relationship between homeleaving and parental income will be stronger in respect of departures for education than other destinations out of the parental home). By inspection this appears to be true for all groups except men in Southern Europe; statistically, however, the difference is not statistically significant in the Nordic countries (possibly due to smaller sample size) and is significant in Northern Europe for the first specification but not the second. Interestingly, the difference is strongly significant for women in Southern Europe (who were not part of the original hypothesis). Thus, there is some, but only limited, support for Hypothesis 3. Turning to look at the effects of young people’s own incomes, we see that again these effects vary by destination. In the Nordic countries, one’s own income affects the decision to leave home as a single or for partnership; in the Northern countries it affects the decision to leave home for partnership; and in the Southern countries it affects the decision to leave home as a single or for partnership – and in the case of women, for education. H4a and H4b concern gender, predicting respectively that (H4a) the relationship between home-leaving and a young person’s own income will be larger for young men than for young women, and (H4a) this difference between the sexes will be largest in the Southern countries, and smallest in the Nordic countries. In fact, in the regressions which treat all exits from home as a single category, there is no difference at all in the coefficients for men and women, in any group of countries. In the regressions which separate out destinations, there are small differences in the Northern and Southern countries between the ‘‘own income’’ coefficients in the men’s and women’s equations; however, they fall well short of statistical significance. The only statistically significant differences are for Southern Europe, where own income has a stronger effect for women in terms of leaving home as a single, or leaving for education. But these

157

differences are significant only at the 10% level, and were not in the direction predicted by the theory. While homeleaving does vary between men and women, we may conclude that the relationship between income and homeleaving does not vary by gender. A general observation is that distinguishing between different destinations on leaving home does matter, and is a much more informative approach than considering departure from home as a homogeneous outcome. Statistically, for all six groups defined by sex and country group, a Wald test rejects the hypothesis that all coefficients are equal between all pairs of outcomes at the 1% level. Moreover, for all groups except women in the Nordic countries, Wald tests show that there are significant differences between the coefficients on own and parental income between the three equations – and therefore, distinguishing between the different destinations does matter. For practical purposes, failing to distinguish exits for education from other reasons leads to underestimates of the effects of both own and parental income in the Northern and Nordic countries, and failing to distinguish between the three categories leads to underestimates of the negative effect of parental income on leaving for partnership in the Southern countries. 6.3. Does the effect of income vary with age? In this final set of estimates, I examine the possibility that the relationship between parental income and homeleaving varies with the age of the co-resident child. To this end, I include a set of interactions between parental income and the young person’s age.7 Results from the interacted equations are reported in Table 5 8; for the purposes of comparison, coefficients from the uninteracted equations reported in Table 4 are given in parentheses. Age interactions are uniformly insignificant in the ‘‘leave for education’’ equation, and in fact the addition of this interaction obscures the highly significant coefficient on parental income which was found for most groups in the previous specification. However, the age interactions for the other two exit routes are much more interesting. In almost all cases, the coefficient on parental income is negative, and the coefficient on the interaction term is positive. These coefficients are not uniformly significant, but they do indicate a tendency, across all groups, for higher parental income to be associated with a lower rate of exit at younger ages, and a higher rate of exit at older ages, confirming Hypothesis 5a. Of course, the important question here is: at what age does the effect of parental income become positive? This

7 There is no suggestion in the literature that the effect of a young person’s own income varies with age. However, for completeness I also estimated regressions which included interactions between the young person’s own income and his or her age. These interaction terms were significant in only one of the 18 equations estimated, and therefore were not included in the final model. 8 Results are presented for the multiple-destinations model, using Specification 1, the simpler of the two specifications. Results for Specification 2 are very similar and are not presented here.

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Table 5 Coefficients on parental income – showing interactions with age. Nordic

Leave as a single Interacted equation Parental income Parental income  age Uninteracted equation Parental income Leave for partnership Interacted equation Parental income Parental income  age Age income has +ve effect Uninteracted equation Parental income – uninteracted Leave for education Interacted equation Parental income Parental income  age Uninteracted equation Parental income – uninteracted

Northern

Southern

Men

Women

Men

Women

Men

Women

0.035+ 0.002+

0.004 0.000

0.010 0.001

0.022+ 0.001**

0.018 0.001

0.028* 0.001*

(0.005)

0.011 0.001 19.5

(0.002)

0.027 0.001 (0.010*)

(0.005)

0.089*** 0.004*** 19.8

(0.005)

0.071+ 0.004* (0.010**)

(0.005*)

0.036** 0.002*** 21.9 (0.005**)

0.036 0.001 (0.007*)

(0.013***)

0.001 0.000 33.7

(0.001)

0.050* 0.002+ (0.012***)

(0.003)

0.031*** 0.001** 35.1 (0.007***)

0.010 0.001 (0.002)

(0.004)

0.052*** 0.002*** 26.9 (0.003*)

0.039 0.002 (0.010**)

Notes: Based on weighted sample of 18–35 year olds living with their parents at time t, and present at time t + 1, and excluding those living with a partner and/or their own child/ren. Coefficients on the young person’s own income are not presented; under this specification they are virtually identical to the coefficients presented in Table 4. * Significance +10%: 5%. ** Significance +10%: 1%. *** Significance +10%: .1%.

age may be calculated by dividing the coefficient on income by the coefficient on the interaction term, though this calculation will have any precision only where both coefficients are highly significant. For the ‘‘leave for partnership’’ destination, where the majority of coefficients are highly significant, these estimated turning points are presented in a separate row. They vary by country group: in the Nordic countries, where homeleaving is typically very early, the turning point is under age 20. In the Northern countries it occurs at age 22 for men and age 34 for women (although given the lack of significance of the coefficients, the latter is likely to be very poorly defined). And in the Southern countries, where home-leaving is latest, it occurs at age 35 for men and age 27 for women. These findings are particularly interesting in relation to the Southern countries. The uninteracted specification found parental income to be negatively related to exits for partnership; including an interaction term reveals that parental income is negatively related to exits at younger ages, but is positively related to exits at (substantially) older ages. One outstanding issue remains. The turning point for Southern men has been estimated at fractionally over age 35. However, no men aged over 35 were actually in the sample, and it would therefore be wrong to treat this as convincing evidence of the existence of a turning point. I therefore re-estimated an identical equation using a sample of Southern European men up to and including those aged 40. This produced almost identical results to the previous equation, with a turning point at age 35.6 years, meaning that we are on relatively safe ground in

concluding that higher parental incomes are associated with a higher probability of exits to partnership after this age. 7. Discussion This paper has examined the factors associated with young people’s departure from the parental home, and the way in which these factors differ between groups of countries across the pre-enlargement EU. It is already well established that the age at leaving home varies enormously across Europe, with young people leaving home far earlier in the Nordic countries than in Southern Europe. Previous studies have sought to explain these North/South differences by economic factors which include the lower supply of affordable housing, and the less fortunate labour market situation, of young people in the South. There is no doubt that these are important determinants of behavioural differences. However, this paper shows that these economic factors cannot be the sole determinants of crosscountry differences. Preferences – particularly parental preferences – matter as well. The fact that preferences play a role is evidenced by the large differences we observe in the effects of parental income between country groups. Suppose economic factors were the only drivers of North/South differences in home-leaving behaviour. The relative affordability of higher education, independent housing, and so forth, in the Nordic countries means that these things are within the reach of most young people in this region. The relative expense of independent living in the South means that it is

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beyond the reach of most young people: however, because incomes are unequally distributed, independent living is certainly affordable for a fraction of young Southern Europeans and their parents. If preferences did not vary between countries, and the decision to leave home was based solely on affordability, we would expect to see a positive relationship between incomes and home-leaving behaviour in all countries, but for this relationship to be more pronounced in the South, where affordability is more of a constraint. In fact, we observe the opposite: the relationship between income and home-leaving is stronger in the Nordic than in the Southern countries, and indeed the relationship between parental income and home-leaving is negative over much of the age range in Southern Europe. These results would be almost impossible to explain using economic factors alone, but are much easier to explain once preferences are brought into the equation. So, preferences matter. The finding that young people’s own incomes are positively related to the probability of leaving home across all countries indicates that young people in all groups of countries have a preference for independence, and will use the resources available to them to this end. Young people in the Nordic countries do appear to have a stronger preference for independence than those in the Southern countries, but a preference for independence is visible everywhere. Among the parental generation, matters are more complicated. In all regions, higher parental income is associated with a lower probability of exit from the parental home to live as a single or (particularly) as part of a couple at younger ages. However, it is associated with a higher probability of such exits at older ages. This supports the arguments made by Avery et al. (1992) that better-off parents use their incomes to deter the formation of partnerships when their children are ‘‘too young’’, but to accelerate the formation partnerships among offspring at older ages. Despite the fact that this pattern is common to all countries considered, there are huge differences in the shape of this relationship, and in particular, in the ages after which parental income becomes associated with a higher probability of leaving home for partnership. In the Nordic countries, this age is at the end of the teens; thus, higher parental incomes serve to deter the formation of partnerships only prior to age 20. In the Southern European countries, by contrast, higher parental incomes deter partnership formation until age 27 for young women, and until the even more advanced age of 35 for men. These differences support the suggestion of Reher (1998) that family ties are ‘‘stronger’’ in Southern than in Northern Europe – we find here that Southern European parents do appear to value the co-residence of their offspring for much longer periods (a full 15 years, in the case of young men) than parents in the Nordic countries; and they direct their resources accordingly. As well as identifying the role of preferences, this paper has highlighted an interesting disjuncture between generations. While parents in the North have a preference for their children’s independence at markedly younger ages than they do in the South, we observe that among the

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younger generation, there is a preference at all ages and in all regions – including Southern Europe – for independence. This means there is a difference in the South between the preferences of the parents and their children, and it is not clear how this will evolve in the longer term. If this generational difference is due to an age effect, the preferences of the people who are now members of the younger generation may change as they become parents themselves, and late home-leaving in Southern Europe may persist. However, if the disjuncture between parents and children is due to a shift between cohorts, then the current generation of young people may keep their preferences for independence when they become parents – in which case, patterns of home-leaving in Southern Europe may come to resemble those elsewhere in Western Europe over the course of a generation. Acknowledgements The preliminary stages of this research were carried out under the ESRC’s Youth, Citizenship and Social Change programme; the latter stages of the work were also completed under an ESRC-funded project (ALICE: Analysis of Life Chances in Europe). Data were collected, processed and made available by Eurostat. Thanks are due to two anonymous referees and to participants at ISER seminars and ESRC programme meetings for useful and insightful comments; and to Richard Berthoud, Kimberly Fisher, Steve Pudney, Peter Dolton, John Bynner, Jane Klobas, Aart Liefbroer and Michail Veliziotis for various forms of encouragement and assistance. All deficiencies and errors in the paper are my own. References Aassve, A., Billari, F. C., & Ongaro, F. (2001). The impact of income and employment status on leaving home: Evidence from the Italian ECHP sample. Labour: Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations, 15(3), 501–529. Aassve, A., Billari, F. C., Mazzucco, S., & Ongaro, F. (2002). Leaving home: A comparative analysis of ECHP data. Journal of European Social Policy, 12(4), 259–275. Aassve, A., Iacovou, M., Davia, M. A., & Mazzucco, S. (2007). Does leaving home make you poor? Evidence from 13 European countries. European Journal of Population, 23(3–4), 315–338. Alesina, A., & Giuliano, P. (2007). The power of the family. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 13051: Cambridge, MA. Aquilino, W. S. (1991). Family structure and home-leaving: A further specification of the relationship. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, 999– 1010. Arts, W., & Gelissen, J. (2002). Three worlds of welfare capitalism or more? A state of the art report. Journal of European Social Policy, 12(2), 137– 158. Avery, R., Goldscheider, F., & Speare, A., Jr. (1992). Feathered nest/gilded cage: Parental income and leaving home in the transition to adulthood. Demography, 29(3), 375–388. Bernhardt, E., Ga¨hler, M., & Goldscheider, F. (2005). Childhood family structure and routes out of the parental home in Sweden. Acta Sociologica, 48(2), 99–115. Berthoud, R., & Iacovou, M. (Eds.). (2004). Social Europe: Living standards and welfare states. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Billari, F. C., Philipov, D., & Baiza´n, P. (2001). Leaving Home in Europe: The experience of cohorts born around 1960. International Journal of Population Geography, 7, 339–356. Billari, F. C. (2005). Partnership, childbearing and parenting: Trends of the 1990s. UNECE and UNFPA The new demographic regime. Population challenges and policy responses (pp. 63–94). New York/Geneva: United Nations.

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