The Effects of Age at Home Leaving and Pathways from Home on Educational Attainment

Using data from the 1986-1987 National Survey of Families and Households, this article examines whether age at leaving home and the pathway from home have long-term consequences for children's educational attainment. Young adults who leave home to attend school (approximately 25% of recent cohorts) average high educational attainment, regardless of their age at home leaving. Their educational attainment, however, is significantly lower if they ever have a home-returning episode. Among the 75% who use other pathways from home, delayed home leaving is associated with significantly and substantially higher education at every level through college graduation. Net of age at home leaving, choosing premarital residential independence or military service (for men) as a pathway from home is associated with significantly higher educational attainment than leaving home through marriage or cohabitation. Effects are modestly stronger among those in more recent cohorts. The results suggest that parental coresidence until at least age 21 and a period of premarital residential independence are associated with children's higher educational attainment. Key Words: education, home leaving, transition to adulthood. Beginning with Kobrin-Goldscheider's study (Kobrin, 1976), a growing body of empirical work has developed on the process of home leaving by young adults. As a result, we have a pretty solid understanding of who leaves home, when, and why. (See White, 1994 for a review.) What we don't know is whether it matters. Research on home leaving has been surprisingly marginalized. Home leaving rarely is included in standard studies of the transition to adulthood, nor has it been investigated as an element of parental sponsorship and support for young adults. The research presented here integrates literatures on home leaving, transition to adulthood, parental sponsorship, and status attainment. Using data from men and women aged 25-49 drawn from the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), we ask whether age at home leaving and pathways from the parental home have long-term consequences for children's status attainment. PRIOR WORK Transition to Adulthood Along with getting married, having children, entering the labor force, and leaving school, leaving the parental home to establish an independent residence is a normative part of the transition to adulthood. In addition to charting historical changes in the life course, scholars have been concerned with the effects of the timing and sequencing of these transitions for adult status attainment (e.g., Marini, Shin, & Raymond, 1989; Rindfuss, 1991). Theoretically, it has been argued that early transitions to adult roles may have negative effects because they thrust young people into roles for which they are not fully prepared and which they cannot sustain successfully (Chassin, Proessen, Sherman, & Edwards, 1992). More generally, out-of-sequence and off-time transitions-both early and late-are suggested to put the individual "out of sequence with prevailing institutional structures" (Marini et al., 1989, p. 89). Research that links timing and sequencing to outcomes has been mixed. Hogan (1980) demonstrated that, net of education, early transitions depressed career mobility in a large sample of White, married men. More recent research generally finds few effects. Using a 15-year panel of high school students to assess the effect of the timing and sequencing of their entry into the labor force, family formation, and leaving school, Marini, Shin, and Raymond (1989) find little or no long-term effect of sequencing or timing on occupation and earnings. Rindfuss, Swicegood, and Rosenfeld (1987) reach the same conclusion. They note that the early adult years are so "disorderly," characterized by so many changes and reverses, that sequencing and timing during this period of transition are of little consequence. As a sign of adulthood, leaving home seems to have as much normative support as getting married or becoming a parent. …