Do Young Mothers and Fathers Differ in the Likelihood of Returning Home?
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12347 |
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
| Author | Karen Benjamin Guzzo |
K B G Bowling Green State University
Do Young Mothers and Fathers Differ in the
Likelihood of Returning Home?
Building on research examining “boomerang”
adult children, the author examines multigener-
ational living among young parents. Returning
home likely differs between young mothers
and fathers given variation in socioeconomic
characteristics, health and risk taking, their
own children’s coresidence, and union stability.
Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
1997 (NLSY97), the author nds that more than
40% of young parents (n=2,721) live with
their own parents at their rst child’s birth or
subsequently. Mothers are generally less likely
to move home than fathers but only when not
controlling for child coresidence and union
stability. Individuals who live with all their
children are less likely to return home, and con-
trolling for child coresidence reverses gender
differences, though this association disappears
in the full model. Young parents who are stably
single and those who experience dissolution are
highly likely to return home comparedto the sta-
bly partnered, with the association signicantly
stronger for fathers than mothers.
In American society, it is widely accepted
that the young adult years are a time of
immense change and multiple transitions
(Arnett, 2000; Settersten & Ray, 2010). As
Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green, OH 43403-0222 (kguzzo@bgsu.edu).
This article was edited by Kelly Raley.
Key Words: adult children, fathers, mothers, multigenera-
tional, young adulthood.
young adults—those younger than age 30—try
to gure out their long-term plans and goals,
they move in and out of households, relation-
ships, schooling, and jobs. Coresidence with
parents—either through living with parents con-
tinuously or “boomeranging” back home—is
common during this period (Fry, 2013; New-
man, 2013). Although most of the transitions
are reversible—one can break up with a partner,
go back to school, or change jobs—becoming
a parent is not. In 2006–2010, about 55% of
women and 42% of men ages 25–29 were
parents (Martinez, Daniels, & Chandra, 2012).
Thus, the instability that typically accom-
panies young adulthood presents several
challenges overall, but some may be unique to
young parents. One of these challenges is logis-
tical: Where, and with whom, do young parents
live? Although parents are less likely to move
back home than nonparents (Stone, Berrington,
& Falkingham, 2014), young parents’ unstable
relationships and low incomes may impede
residential independence. As multigenerational
households have become increasingly common,
with the modal category consisting of a house-
holder (grandparent generation, or G1), an adult
child (middle generation, or G2), and a grand-
child (G3; Lofquist, 2012), the growing body
of research on the topic has largely focused
on the grandparents (e.g., Keene & Batson,
2010; Stykes, Manning, & Brown, 2014) or
the grandchildren (e.g., Dunifon, Ziol-Guest, &
Kopko, 2014; Kreider & Ellis, 2011). The living
arrangements of the middle generation remains
an understudied topic beyond some work on
teen parents (Trent & Harlan, 1994), minority
1332 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (October 2016): 1332–1351
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12347
Returning Home Among Young Mothers and Fathers 1333
parents (Cohen & Casper, 2002), and young
mothers who are disadvantaged (Pilkauskas,
2012). Young fathers have received less atten-
tion, yet they, too, may return to their own
parents’ home. Because the reasons young
mothers and fathers return home may differ,
this article examines gender differences in the
likelihood of returning to the parental home
among young parents using several waves of the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997
(NLSY97).
B
From a life course perspective, leaving the
parental home is a key step in the transition
to adulthood, and the age at home leaving has
been gradually rising (Furstenberg, 2010). In
2012, more than one third of young adults ages
18–31 lived with their own parents (Fry, 2013).
Along with social changes in the meaning
and desirability of adulthood (Kimmel, 2008),
long-term economic shifts have impeded young
adults’ ability to achieve independence because
moving—and staying—out of the parental home
is partially dependent on the labor market (Bell,
Gurtless, Gornick, & Smeeding, 2007; Card
& Lemieux, 2000). Returning to home is so
common, in fact, that there is a term for these
young adults: “boomerang kids” (Newman,
2013).
Young Mothers and Fathers
Economic and structural impediments to the
transition to independence (Newman, 2013)
have dominated the research on boomerang
kids, so little is known about young parents’
experiences of multigenerational living, and
this is a major oversight. Because many young
adults are parents, the return of young parents
(G2) into their own parents’ (G1) household can
mean their own children (G3) are potentially
experiencing residential changes and multi-
generational households, both of which are
generally negatively linked to well-being among
children (Adam, 2004; Black et al., 2002),
though some studies have found that multi-
generational living is benecial for children
(DeLeire & Kalil, 2002). Some characteristics,
such as the middle generation’s (G2) age at
birth, race/ethnicity, and G1 family factors (i.e.,
structure, maternal education, maternal age
at birth) have been identied as correlates of
multigenerational living among young parents
(Caputo, 2001; Cohen & Casper, 2002; Trent &
Harlan, 1994).
Less is understood about differences in young
parents’ multigenerational living by gender, yet
parenthood is a highly gendered experience.
I outline several reasons that young parents’
gender is important for returns to the parental
home. At the broadest level, work on inter-
generational assistance has shown that daugh-
ters receive (and give) more support than sons
(Davey, Janke, & Savla, 2004), especially when
daughters’ perceived needs are high (Suitor,
Pillemer, & Sechrist, 2006). Similarly, adult
children (G2) who have their own children (G3)
receive more assistance from their own parents
(G1) than the adult children with no children
(Fingerman, Miller, Birditt, & Zarit, 2009). It is
unclear whether this varies by child coresidence,
but it seems reasonable that the G1 generation
would be particularly invested in helping out
their own grandchildren (G3); mothers’ higher
rates of living with their own children (G3) com-
pared to fathers might increase the odds that
they (G2) return to the parental home. How-
ever, other work nds that sons are more likely
to be coresident (Payne, 2012; Vespa, Lewis, &
Kreider, 2012); perhaps men are less likely to
have actually left the parental home (Copp, Gior-
dano, Longmore, & Manning, 2015) because
their ages at achieving various adult transitions
is later than women’s (Oesterle, Hawkins, Hill,
& Bailey, 2010). To the extent that returning to
the parental home, as a form of intergenerational
assistance, follows other work nding gendered
variation in parents’ (G1) aid to adult children
(G2), I derive the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: Mothers are more likely to return to
the parental home than fathers, net of basic demo-
graphic and family background variables (respon-
dent’s age at birth, race-ethnicity,adolescent fam-
ily structure, and maternal [G1] education and teen
fertility).
Disadvantage Among Young Mothers
and Fathers
Young mothers and fathers, though, differ in
ways that may mediate the association between
gender and returning to the parental home. I
focus on two broad areas of variation: disad-
vantage and parenting context. Disadvantage
is a multifaceted concept, but here I highlight
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