Moving Out or Helping Out? Transition Regimes, Families and Leaving the Parental Home

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 22. Transition to Adulthood

Abstract

The process of youth leaving the parental home has come to be regarded as an important facet of the transition to adulthood, and research across Europe shows substantial variation in the timing, sequencing and destinations of home-leavers. An array of factors may be responsible for national differences, including broad environmental factors, institutional policies, cultural prescriptions, and family and financial issues. The present research examines the role of the family in delaying emerging adults from leaving the parental home while extending current work on "transition regimes” to explain national variation in moving out among European youth. I seek to explain youth opinions about familial obligations and financial duty as partially a function of these established configurations of societal factors. Analyses show that respondents in sub-protective and post-communist regimes that are characterized by tighter familial ties and less institutional support are more likely to perceive that youth are staying at home longer to support their parents financially, while respondents from universalistic and employment-centered regimes that have less emphasis on familial bonds and more institutional support are less likely to offer this family-based explanation and tend to posit other reasons for the delay. Results are discussed in terms of more clearly understanding how the dynamics of family relations are shaped by transition regimes, as well as policy implications for regimes where families tend to need more youth financial assistance.

Author

• Andrew Breidenbach, University of New Mexico