Gender differences in the impact of family background on leaving the parental home

Abstract

We address the question to what extent characteristics of the family of origin influence the timing of leaving the parental home and to what extent these effects differ between men and women. We use data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study to examine the effects of parental resources, atmosphere in the family of origin and family structure on leaving home to live without a partner and leaving home to live with a partner. The results indicate that a pleasant atmosphere in the parental home decreases the risk of leaving home and living in stepfamilies or single-parent families increases this risk. The availability of parental resources leads to a decreased risk of leaving home at young ages, but an increased risk at later ages. Many of these effects are found for both men and women and for both pathways out of the home. Furthermore, we find evidence that women are affected more strongly by family background characteristics than men are.

Differences in leaving home by individual and parental education among young adults in Europe

“…It also stresses the importance of imitation and role modeling as principles of learning about demographic behavior during childhood and adolescence. In the case of parents from higher educational backgrounds, the relatively strong emphasis on autonomy and human capital accumulation (e.g., higher education and higher-status jobs) and discouragement of potentially costly and nonreversible life course transitions (e.g., starting a union and having the first child) (Kohn, Slomczynski, and Schoenbach 1986) seem to be associated with early leaving home, but an unlikely direct transition to living with a partner (Avery, Goldscheider, and Speare 1992;Blaauboer and Mulder 2010). This secondly means that parents with different levels of education will differ in the amount of economic resources they can transfer to their adult children and how they use these resources.…”

“…All others who leave home are classified as 'leaving home to live without a partner.' 4 Following Blaauboer and Mulder (2010), process time starts at age 16 and ends at age 35, because events happening before or after those ages are considered to be out of the ordinary. Note that we measured age at the end of the year (i.e., age at leaving home = year of the event -year of birth).…”

“…The timing of leaving home and the different pathways out of the parental home are known to be influenced by three sets of factors: individual characteristics (e.g., level of education and family background), parental characteristics (e.g., parental education and homeownership of parents), and contextual characteristics (e.g., wider social institutions, broad historical trends, and sociocultural regimes and cultures) (e.g., Aassve, Arpino, and Billari 2013;Blaauboer and Mulder 2010;Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1999;Iacovou 2001Iacovou , 2010. These findings are well established in the research literature and we describe them only briefly because our main focus lies on analyzing the differential effects across countries.…”

The changing determinants of UK young adults´ living arrangements

“…Previous research has emphasized trends in the average age at leaving home and entry into partnership or parenthood, particularly postponement (Billari and Liefbroer 2010;Corijn and Klijzing 2001;Iacovou 2002). Important differences in the timing of leaving home according to individual and parental resources, family structure, region of residence, and state support have also been highlighted (Blaauboer and Mulder 2010;Buck and Scott 1993;de Jong Gierveld, Liefbroer, and Beekink 1991;Goldscheider 2000;Iacovou 2010). …”

Inter-generational ties, financial transfers and home-ownership support

“…We therefore included a more factual measure of the family atmosphere in the respondent's youth, referring to the relationship between the parents (compare Blaauboer and Mulder 2010). This measure included five items on the occurrence of arguments between the parents and whether they had lived separately for a while around age 15 of the respondent.…”