Should I stay or should I go? Sibling effects in household formation

Abstract

This paper analyzes peer e¤ects among siblings in the decision to leave parental home. Estimating peer e¤ects is challenging because of problems of re ‡ection, endogenous group formation, and correlated unobservables. We overcome these issues using the exogenous variation in siblings'household formation implied by the eligibility rules for a Spanish rental subsidy. Our results show that sibling e¤ects are negative and that these e¤ects can be explained by the presence of old or ill parents. Sibling e¤ects turn positive for close-in-age siblings, when imitation is more likely to prevail. Our …ndings indicate that policy makers who aim at fostering household formation should target the household rather than the individual and combine policies for young adults with policies for the elderly.JEL Codes: J1, H2, I3

The Family Peer Effect on Mothers' Labor Supply

“…To solve the potential re ‡ection and endogeneity issues we use an instrumental variables approach that can be viewed as an extension of the approach introduced by Kelejian and Prucha (1998) and Lee (2003). 5 The extension consists of considering interactions occurring between people within multiple rather than a single network. 6 We consider the family and neighbourhood networks, and assume that each mother interacts with her family members (cousins and sisters) and with her neighbours but that mothers do not interact with her family's neighbours.…”

Leaving your mamma: why so late in Italy?

“…The later exit is also accompanied by both lower employment rates and lower marriage rates. 4 According to the evidence presented above, in Italy the transition to adulthood occurs late, relative to other countries. Why is that so?…”

“…Nevertheless, in Italy the percentage of male students in the age class 25-29 is only 14 percent; it then lowers rapidly to around 3 in the age class 30-34, and close to zero at older ages.3 The comparison is made for the age class 20-24 because it has the most comparable information with the data reported inTable 1. In fact, the short length of the ECHP implies that the selected cohort 1970-74 is not fully observable in any of the other age classes proposed above 4. The understanding of what induced such increases goes beyond the scope of this analysis but my guess is that it might be connected to the recession that hit Italy for several years in the period 2009-2013, i.e.…”

Employment protection legislation and household formation: evidence from Italy

“…The average age at which young people leave their parental household is 30.2 years in Italy, 29.8 years in Spain, and 29.6 years in Greece, while it is 21.2 years in Denmark, 22 years in Finland, and 17.5 in Sweden. For further details, see: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Age_of_ young_people_leaving_their_parental_household.2 Other examples areAhn and Sánchez-Marcos (2017) andAparicio-Fenoll and Oppedisano (2016) for Spain andChiuri and Del Boca (2010) andManacorda and Moretti (2006) for Italy.…”