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Parents, local house prices, and leaving home in Britain

Publication type

Journal Article

Published in

Population, Space and Place

Authors

Sait Bayrakdar and Rory Coulter

Publication date

Summary

Leaving the parental home is a significant step in young adults' housing careers and pathways to independence. Although a large literature examines how life course trajectories influence leaving home, much less is known about how the “linked lives” of parents and the local cost of housing shape young people's departures from the family residence. By enriching the U.K. Household Longitudinal Study with house price data, this study investigates how parental attributes and the geography of local housing costs influence home leaving in contemporary Britain. The results show that higher local house prices are associated with delayed departure from the parental home, although the relative magnitude of this effect is modest. By contrast, the effects of parental factors are more nuanced. Parental characteristics have little impact on the odds of leaving home to form partnerships, whereas the likelihood of departing to live alone or in shared accommodation is reduced by parental homeownership or living with both biological parents. Taken together, these findings suggest that young adults' residential pathways are shaped by the complex patterns of choice and constraint that are generated by disparities in family circumstances and local opportunity structures.

Volume

24

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/psp.2087

ISSN

16

Subjects

Area Effects, Young People, Households, Life Course Analysis and Housing Market

Notes

Copyright © 2017 The Authors Population, Space and Place Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd; Open Access; This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.; Is referenced by: Hamilton, C. (2018) Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study – Written evidence (IFP0021) [House of Lords Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision]. London: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Select Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision.

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