sons are increasing due to the post-war decline in the number of children, people are no longer bound to their positions among siblings and it is common for even the first son to leave his parents' home and establish a separate household. The percentage of female respondents having experience of leaving home is higher than for male respondents in the generations born up until the 1950s, as females normally left home at marriage. This trend can no longer be observed in the generations born in the 1960s and later, however.

### 2. Age at Leaving Home

Various factors, such as postponement of marriage and increased accessibility to higher education which gained momentum in the post-war period, have played significant roles in prolonging the period of staying at home with parents and increasing the age at which people tend to leave home. In general, timing of leaving home is considered to be late for females than males, because more females stay with their parents until marriage. The data by residential areas indicate that the age of leaving home is higher in metropolitan areas than in non-metropolitan areas. For the female generation born between 1960 and 1969, for example, the mean age of leaving home is 22.1 years old in non-metropolitan areas, while it is 23.3 years old in metropolitan areas. It should be noted that because this survey only covers information collected from household heads and their spouses, the data for young generations presented here do not include data on those who might leave home in the Table future. Therefore, it is expected that these younger generations would actually leave home at a higher age than as indicated in the present data.

### 3. Reasons for Leaving Home

The reasons for leaving parents’ home given in the survey include “to attend higher educational institutions,” “to get a job, for career switch or transfer,” “marriage,” “due to housing-related reasons and/or ease of commuting,” and to “become self-reliant and/or independent from parents (Table VI-2).”

## (1) Reasons for Leaving Home: Males

To attend higher educational institutions accounts for only 10 to 20% of the reasons for leaving home for males in the generations born up until the 1940s. In the generations born in the 1950s and later, however, it became much more common to enter universities to obtain a higher education, and thus the percentage of those leaving home for this reason soared to as much as 30% in non-metropolitan areas. The percentage of respondents leaving home to go on to higher education also increases in metropolitan areas as well, but the percentage is noticeably lower than in the non-metropolitan areas, by as much as 10% for some cohorts.

For males, the primary reasons for leaving home used to be work-related, such as to get a job, career switch and job transfer. This was the most frequent answer in the generations born before the 1950s, with an especially strong trend in non-metropolitan areas, where work-related reasons accounted for 50 to 60% of respondents' reasons. In the generations born in the 1960s and later, more and more people started to leave home to receive higher education, with such cases becoming as common or even more common than the work-related reasons. In metropolitan areas as well, work-related reasons for leaving home used to be the most common until the generation born in the 1960s, but the percentage of those leaving home to receive higher education exceeds work-related reasons in the generations born in the 1970s and later.

The percentages of respondents in non-metropolitan areas who left home for marriage in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s cohorts exhibit a downward trend for later generations. However, the trend reverses to show an increasing trend among the generations born in the 1960s and 1970s. In metropolitan areas, the percentage of respondents who left home for marriage used to exhibit a general downward trend in the same way as in non-metropolitan areas, but the trend reverses among the generation born in the 1970s, showing that 24.6% of the respondents left home due to marriage, which is almost as high as the reasons for higher education, work, etc. Finally, among the generation born in the 1970s, the percentage of respondents stating that they left home to become self-reliant and/or independent from their parents exceeds 10% in metropolitan areas.

## (2) Reasons for Leaving Home: Females

Among the female respondents, leaving home for marriage accounts for the overwhelming majority of the reasons stated in the survey. In metropolitan areas in particular, although the percentage declines from the generation born prior to the war until the generation born in the 1970s, it consistently remains higher than 50%. Throughout the generations born in the 1950s and earlier, marriage and work-related reasons together accounts for more than 80%. Although marriage is also the most common reason for leaving home in non-metropolitan areas, the percentage is lower compared to metropolitan areas. In non-metropolitan areas, the percentages of respondents who