Volume 36 - Article 38 | Pages 1109–1148  

How kinship systems and welfare regimes shape leaving home: A comparative study of the United States, Germany, Taiwan, and China

By Bernhard Nauck, Nicolai Gröpler, Chin-Chun Yi

Abstract

Objective: This paper aims to explain societal differences in the event of leaving the parental home as part of the transition to adulthood, in the United States, Germany, China, and Taiwan. It proposes bridge hypotheses between societal characteristics such as kinship system and welfare regime and home-leaving behavior, and tests them with nationally representative panel studies.

Methods: Four panel studies (NLSY97 for the USA; PAIRFAM for Germany; CFPS for China; TYP for Taiwan) were harmonized for similar cohorts, with an age span of 15 to 30 years. Testing was based on age-specific tabulations of household composition and separate discrete-time event history models.

Results: The prevalence of home-leaving is highest in the United States, followed by Germany, China, and then Taiwan. Timing is earlier in the United States than in Germany, and earlier in China than in Taiwan. Gender-specific coincidence of home-leaving with entry into higher education, the work force, cohabitation, and marriage can be conclusively related to differences in kinship system and welfare regime, and regional opportunity disparities.

Contribution: The empirical results point to significant cultural differences between home-leaving in collectivistic, patrilineal societies (China, Taiwan) and individualistic, bilineal societies (USA, Germany). Whereas neolocal housing signifies an important step in the transition to adulthood in the latter societies, continuous intergenerational housing, or even an early return to it, is normatively supported in collectivistic cultures. Differences between the United States and Germany on the one hand, and China and Taiwan on the other, point to variation in welfare regimes and differences in urbanization.

Author's Affiliation

• Bernhard Nauck - Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany EMAIL
• Nicolai Gröpler - Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany EMAIL
• Chin-Chun Yi - Academia Sinica, Taiwan EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Value of Children and the social production of welfare
Volume 30 - Article 66

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