Does Unemployment Help or Hinder Becoming Independent? The Role of Employment Status for Leaving the Parental Home

Two broad trends in industrialized countries motivate this article: on the one hand, the life phase between youth and adulthood has prolonged and diversified; on the other hand, entering the labour market has become more complex and insecure. The article combines two aspects of these trends by analysing the effect of unemployment on leaving home. Extending previous research, we use a resource-oriented theoretical framework that allows us to elaborate the impact of employment-related resources of different actors. Our main hypothesis is that availability of employment related resources matters for leaving home. Furthermore, we assume that several actors are involved in the decision to leave home: individual, welfare state, parents, and partner. Resources of each can be pooled, and resources of other actors can compensate for own shortages. In the analyses we use life history data of two birth cohorts in West Germany. We find that for young adults with partners own unemployment accelerates leaving home, while for singles leaving home is delayed. Parental resources and unemployment benefits also have only an effect if young adults have no partners. Thus, partnership status plays a crucial role in shaping the transitions of youth to residential independence.