Abstract
This paper provides an in-depth portrait of the nest-leaving process in early adulthood as it emerged in the 1980s. Event histories are used to describe transitions in and out of the parental home during the years from age 15 through age 23. We focus on the role of the “new” forms of living arrangements in the leaving-home process, namely nonfamily living and cohabitation. The results show that the transition to full residential independence is more gradual, with more intermediate steps, than previous studies suggested. Cohabitation is rare as a route out of the parental home, and both nonfamily living and cohabitation lead to much higher return rates than does marriage.
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Support for this analysis and for the data collection on which it was based was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This work also bas benefited from the contributions of a large number of people. The paper was read and critiqued by Calvin Goldscheider, Christabel Young, and two anonymous reviewers, from whom it benefited immeasurably. The interviewers, coders, and computing personnel of the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan provided expertise and perseverance in collecting and processing the data. Ronald Freedman, David Goldberg, Lolagene Coombs, and Deborah Freedman played important roles in various waves of the data collection. Judy Baughn and Kashif Sheikh prepared many aspects of the manuscript for publication. The authors appreciate these many contributions but retain responsibility for any errors.
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Goldscheider, F., Thornton, A. & Young-DeMarco, L. A portrait of the nest-leaving process in early adulthood. Demography 30, 683–699 (1993). https://doi.org/10.2307/2061813
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2061813