Moving Out and Marriage: What Do Young Adults Expect?

This paper examines expectations about premarital residential independence among young US adults and is based on data from 1980 high school seniors. About 70% of these young adults expect to move out of the parental home before marriage pointing to ways in which new norms are emerging which fit into patterns of independence in the transition to adulthood. The analysis of the expectations young adults express about when they plan to move out of the parental home and how they relate this to the timing of marriage suggests that there are substantial variations in the factors affecting premarital residential independence and that these relationships raise important issues that relate to theories of gender ethnic and family change. Overall men expect to live away from the parental household before they marry more than do young women those with more parental resources to purchase an independent residence those who expect to marry at an older age and those who do not have ethnic and religious ties that link them as young adults to their parental home until marriage. The higher levels of black expectations for premarital residential independence appear to be primarily linked to the very unusual patterns of marriage increasingly characterizing the black community rather than to socioeconomic background. Hispanics particularly Mexicans and Cubans are less likely to expect to move out of the parental home before marriage. Increasing affluence is leading to greater expectations for residential separation between generations even among ethnic and religious groups with a strong emphasis on family solidarity. Overall most young people whatever their socioeconomic and ethnic background expect to live independently of the parental household before they marry.