How do parental background and local house prices influence leaving home in Britain?

1. How do parental background and local house prices influence leaving home in Britain? Sait Bayrakdar and Rory Coulter, University of Cambridge University of Groningen, 24th November 2016

2. Outline • Background and questions • Theory • Data and approach • Preliminary results • Discussion and next steps

3. BACKGROUND

4. 1. Why study leaving home? Important for young people • Poverty risk (Iacovou 2010); housing career (Mulder 2003) Important for parents and family dynamics • Resources; decision-making; privacy; time-use • Relationships and exchanges with children • Behaviours of young people and their siblings

5. 1. Why study leaving home?

6. 1. Why study leaving home? Important for society • Transmissions of (dis)advantage; housing systems Leaving home Source: Burrows (1999: 30)

7. 1. Historical perspectives: Pre-industrial 2 types of route out of the parental home in pre-industrial England (see Wall, 1983)

8. 1. Historical perspectives: 1970s-1980s Some resonance with patterns in 1970s and early 80s Source: Berrington and Murphy (1994: 239) • Timing • Relatively early • Returns fairly rare - Kiernan (1991) estimates 33% men & 26% women returned by age 23 in 1958 cohort • 2. Synchronization • Often linked to higher education or forming partnerships (early marriage until 1970s) ♀ ♂

9. 1. Historical perspectives: 1970s-early 80s Variation in timing and pathways by gender and class (Berrington and Murphy, 1994) Early exits facilitated by range of factors: • Favourable housing access and affordability • Supportive welfare system with student grants, eligibility for social benefits etc (Berrington and Stone, 2014) Fit into model of “early, contracted and simple” pathway to adulthood (Billari and Liefbroer, 2010)

10. 1. New perspectives? Model breaking down from mid 1980s “Late, protracted and complex” transitions? Conceptual critiques New trends Transition to adulthood subjective, not defined by roles/events (Arnett, 2000; White, 1994) Increased residence in parental home 36% 1996 40% 2015 (ONS 2015a) Widespread returns or ‘boomerangs’ (Stone et al., 2014) ‘Semi dependence’ across HH (Arundel and Ronald, 2016; Heath and Calvert, 2013)

11. 1. Macro-structural explanations Two constellations of (overlapping) perspectives

12. 1. Implications of trends Restrictions and constraints on home-leaving increasingly seen as a threat to social equity/justice 2 main problems identified: • Intergenerational effects social disparities

13. 1. Implications of trends

14. 1. Implications of trends Restrictions and constraints on home-leaving increasingly seen as a threat to social equity/justice 2 main problems identified: • Intergenerational effects social disparities • Local housing markets spatial disparities

15. 1. Redfern Review (November 2016) “Indeed, looking at data for the UK, the number of 25-34-year-olds living at home with parents increased by 1 million between 1997 and 2015, from 5.6 million to 6.6 million, despite the population of that age group rising by only 300,000. It is difficult to believe that, all of a sudden, the preference of 25-34-year-olds has changed so that they want to stay at home. Their decisions must be being influenced by the changing availability of housing and the changing affordability constraints faced by this group.” (Redfern Review, p. 53)

16. 1. Implications of trends Source: Shelter (2014: 20)

17. 1. Implications of trends Correlation between Local Authority median house price and median rents Affordability of homeownership Affordability of renting Source: ONS (2015: 7) Source: National Housing Federation (2014: 24-25)

18. 1. Research question How do parental background and local house prices influence the timing and household destinations of young adults’ transitions out of the parental home? Two main contributions (hopefully!) • Examine patterns for recent cohort • Examine role of local housing prices

19. 2. THEORY

20. 2. Conceptualizing leaving home Decisions influenced by (i) preferences for independence and (ii) ability and opportunity to act on preferences (Buck and Scott, 1993; Murphy and Wang, 1998) Good evidence that no single process of leaving home (Iacovou, 2010) Conceptualize multiple ‘competing risks’ Distinguish (1) partnership, (2) full-time student and (3) other arrangements (solo living, sharing, kids…)

21. 2. Conceptualizing leaving home HOUSING CONTEXT ‘Linked lives’ of parents Preferences Individual attributes and trajectories Leaving home decision Ability and opportunities

22. 2. Individual level factors

23. 2. Parental factors

24. 3. Local housing prices Cross-national evidence people leave home more quickly where housing (especially in the rental sector) is affordable and accessible (Mandic, 2008) Work by Ermisch (1999) & Ermisch and Di Salvo (1997) suggested higher regional house prices reduce exits, especially to partnership To what extent is this still/less/more strongly the case?

25. 3. DATA AND APPROACH

26. 3. Data United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study Waves 1-5 (2009-2015) Enriched with Local Authority house prices from ONS House Price Index • Mix-adjusted three monthly means in £2015 Young people aged 16-30 in parental home at t who completed an interview (cf. Ermisch, 1999) • N= 11,242 (49.2% men, 50.8% women)

27. 3. Approach Look at where young people go at t+1 • Stay at home • Leave to full-time education, partnership or ‘other’ independent arrangements • NB: Very few ‘boomerangs’ in the sample • Examine transition rates, including attrition • Probit models of exit risk with Heckman selection equation

28. 4. RESULTS (preliminary…)

29. 4. Raw transition patterns UKHLS Ermisch (1999: 58) Ermisch replication Data: BHPS 1991-5 Data: UKHLS 2009-15 Data: BHPS 1991-5 BUT attrition=14% in BHPS, 29% in UKHLS!

30. 4. Probit modelling: Control effects Notes: ***=p<0.001 **=p<0.01 *=p<0.05. Cluster robust standard errors. Models include regional fixed effects.

31. 4. Probit modelling: Parents and prices Notes: ***=p<0.001 **=p<0.01 *=p<0.05. Cluster robust standard errors. Models include regional fixed effects.

32. 5. DISCUSSION AND NEXT STEPS

33. 5. Discussion Parental family structure, economic position and housing important (but not for leaving to partnership) High local house prices lower risk of leaving home • However – effects relatively small (note large negative London effect at regional level) Although there is lots of attrition in UKHLS, perhaps this isn’t too great a problem for modelling work

34. 5. Next steps • Investigate gender breakdown • Ermisch (1999) found no significant differences 2. Test for interactions (eg. parents x prices) 3. Extra geographic variables • Unemployment rate, population density, housing stock… 4. Multilevel modelling

35. Acknowledgements This research is supported by an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award [ES/L009498/1]. Financial support from the Isaac Newton Trust is also gratefully acknowledged. The United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. UKHLS data were accessed via the UK Data Service. Neither the original collectors of the data nor the UK Data Service bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented in this study.

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