Repeated Home Leaving Behavior of American Youth

The past decade has witnessed a growing interest in home leaving behavior of youth. Researchers have examined the relationship between home leaving and family structure (White and Booth 1985; Bianchi 1987; Young 1987; Mitchell, Wister and Burch, 1989; Aquilino 1990, 1991), family socioeconomic background (Gill Jones 1987; Mitchell, Wister and Burch 1989; Aquilino 1991), race/ethnicity (Hofferth 1984 ; Beck and Beck 1984; Glick and Lin 1986; Goldscheider and DaVanzo 1986, 1989; Aquilino 1991), gender (Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1987; Aquilino 1990, 1991), as well as many other aspects. As a result of this mounting attention, much new light has been shed on home leaving behavior. Two recent research studies have found, for instance, that young adults today tend to leave home later than earlier cohorts (Buck and Scott 1993), and that they tend to fan out in all directions rather than just leaving home by way of marriage (Thornton, Young-DeMarco et al, 1993). Most of the home leaving literature, however, focuses on first time home leaving. Studies on repeated home leaving are still lacking to a large extent. In spite of this general oversight on the researchers' part, repeated home leaving constitutes a noticeable phenomenon. According to Young (1984), "Around 50% of men and around 40% of women who left home returned later to live with their parents." Young argued that this occurred mostly among those who had left home for reasons other than marriage. Goldscheider and DaVanzo have contributed significantly to the small literature on repeated home leaving. They find that repeated home leaving is more common among unmarried adults such as those who are full-time students and those who serve in the army (DaVanzo and Goldscheider 1990). Being married parents is associated with higher probability of returning to parental homes, presumably because the adult children want to avail themselves of child care from grandparents. On the other hand, being unmarried parents discourages home return. For the unmarried, older age and being female both reduce the likelihood of returning home, but unemployment increases the likelihood. For the married, blacks are more likely to return home than whites. Personal income is found to relate to repeated home leaving independent of marital status. Personal income at time t increases the likelihood of home leaving by time t+l and decreases the likelihood of home return (DaVanzo and Goldscheider 1990). While DaVanzo and Goldscheider's studies have undoubtedly advanced our understanding of repeated home leaving, a number of questions still remain to be answered. Previous literature on home leaving has suggested that family structure affects adult children's home leaving behavior, but we do not know whether family structure affects adult children's repeated home leaving. Also, do children who leave home early bounce back and forth more? The present study has dual purposes: to provide some answers to these questions and to establish a set of important predictors for repeated home leaving. The variables used in this study are based on the previous literature on home leaving. They are sorted into 3 major categories: family structure, family formation and personal characteristics. Together with control variables, these variables form the predictors by which repeated home leaving will be studied. METHOD Sample The National Survey of Families and Households consists of interviews with a national probability sample of 13,017 respondents. My sample consists of 3,485 respondents who have left home at least once and whose age is 30 or less. Respondents who have never left home are not at risk of repeated home leaving, hence are excluded from my sample. The upper cut off point is set at 30 to retain late repeated home leavers. Because home leaving is often regarded as a major step in the transition to adulthood (Goldscheider and DaVanzo 1985; Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1989; Aquilino 1990), the small percentage of repeated home leaving taking place after 30 is of little interest to this paper. …