Returning to the parental home: Boomerang moves of younger adults and the welfare regime context

Abstract

Returns to the parental home represent a dramatic housing career interruption that can have significant social and economic implications. Interaction of individual characteristics with turning point shocks, such as unemployment or partnership dissolution, are key triggering events; however, housing disruptions are further embedded within variegated social, cultural and institutional contexts. Fundamental is the nature of the welfare regime, explaining norms surrounding co-residence as well as the amount and type of resources available. Through analyses using the Eurostat Longitudinal Survey on Income and Living Conditions, the research establishes a foundational understanding of how factors at both the individual as well as institutional and socio-cultural level moderate young adults’ housing interruptions across Europe. The results showed a significant welfare regime effect in outcomes of returned co-residence as well as evidence of differentiations across regimes in how individual characteristics and the experience of turning points related to returns. Higher return propensities were found among more familialistic contexts of Southern Europe and New Member States, while lower likelihoods were evident in the face of stronger state support and practices of earlier autonomy in Social Democratic and, to a lesser degree, intermediate Conservative regime contexts.