She's Leaving Home: But Why? An Analysis of Young People Leaving the Parental Home

In this article we use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to build on existing work concerning the timing and the process of leaving home to the different destinations of marriage and independent living in the United States....We find that among recent cohorts the trend has been towards leaving later particularly so for men. Moreover young people are more likely to leave to independent living and are less likely to leave to marriage....We also find substantial effects from...factors such as race and region characteristics of the family of origin the young persons own income resources and contextual variables such as unemployment. In particular we find that short-term changes in characteristics of family background have an important influence on the timing and destination of departures. (EXCERPT)