Ethnic Differences in Returning Home: Explanations From a Life Course Perspective

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12399
• Author: Lenny Stoeldraijer,Tom Kleinepier,Ann Berrington
• Published date: 01 August 2017
• Date: 01 August 2017

T K Delft University of Technology and Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic

Institute/Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen/University of Groningen

A B University of Southampton∗

L S Statistics Netherlands∗∗

Ethnic Differences in Returning Home:

Explanations From a Life Course Perspective

Ethnic differences in leaving and returning

home may reect varying cultural norms

regarding intergenerational coresidence, but

also differences in transitions in linked domains,

for example, employment and partnership

transitions. This study uses Dutch population

register data to compare returning home among

second-generation Turks, Moroccans, Suri-

namese, and Antilleans with native Dutch who

had left the parental home between age 16 and

28 in the period 1999 to 2011 (N=194,020).

All second-generation groups were found to be

more likely to return home than native Dutch.

OTB—Research for the Built Environment, Facultyof

Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of

Technology,P.O. Box 5030, 2600 GA Delft, The

Netherlands (t.kleinepier@tudelft.nl).

∗Department of Social Statistics and Demography,

University of Southampton, Higheld, Southampton SO17

1BJ, United Kingdom.

∗∗Department of Demography, Statistics Netherlands, P.O.

Box 24500, 2490 HA The Hague, The Netherlands.

© 2017 The Authors. Journal of Marriage and Familypub-

lished by WileyPeriodicals, Inc. on behalf of National Coun-

cil on Family Relations.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative

Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-

tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the original

work is properly cited.

Key Words: ethnicity, family life, intergenerational relation-

ships, transitions, young adults.

A large part of these differences wasrelated to

the timing and occurrence of other key events in

the life course, such as age at leaving home and

partnership dissolution. Although the impact of

partnership dissolution on returning home was

found to be strong among all origin groups, it

was less pronounced among second-generation

youth, particularly Turks and Moroccans, than

native Dutch youth. Possible explanations and

implications are discussed.

The transition to residential independence con-

tinues to be an important marker of the transition

to adulthood (Corijn & Klijzing, 2001). How-

ever, this transition has become more protracted

and nonlinear in the United States and Europe,

with increasing proportions of young adults

boomeranging back to the parental home (South

& Lei, 2015; Wobma & de Graaf, 2010). Recent

studies have sought to explain this trend in

terms of broader changes in the life course expe-

riences of young adults, including economic

uncertainty arising from precarity in the youth

labor market, lack of affordability in the hous-

ing market, and the instability of partnerships

(Copp, Giordano, Longmore, & Manning, 2015;

Sandberg-Thoma, Snyder, & Jang, 2015; Stone,

Berrington, & Falkingham, 2014). Returning

home can have negative implications, impacting

relationships with parents, peers, and intimate

partners (Lewis, West, Roberts, & Noden, 2015;

Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (August 2017): 1023–1040 1023

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12399

1024 Journal of Marriage and Family

Sassler, Ciambrone, & Benway, 2008). At the

same time, moving back to the parental house-

hold can also provide nancial relief and emo-

tional support to those who have been affected

by job loss, housing insecurity, or partnership

breakdown (Kaplan, 2012; Lewis et al., 2015).

The implications of returning home for young

adults and their parents depend on the reason for

returning. Extended coresidence has been found

to be associated with declines in parent and child

well-being in situations where returning home

coincides with negative events such as job loss

(Copp et al., 2015; Davis, Kim, & Fingerman,

2016). It is thus important to gain a deeper under-

standing of the life course events that trigger

returns home and how they differ according to

individual and parental characteristics.

The implications of returning home also

depend on the extent to which extended coresi-

dence is viewed as nonnormative (Davis et al.,

2016), which may differ across cultural groups.

In many Western European countries, early

residential independence and autonomy from

parents are highly valued and are well supported

by advanced welfare states (Aassve, Arpino,

& Billari, 2013). Returning home is generally

portrayed negatively in public discourse (Kins

& Beyers, 2010). Many non-Western societies,

in contrast, are more collectivistically oriented,

which is reected in strong family ties and inter-

generational support obligations (Kagitçibasi,

1996; Nauck, 2002). Although leaving home

is not necessarily associated with a break in

collectivistic family ties because parents and

children can maintain close family links and

exchanges while living in separate households,

returning is more strongly in contrast with

values of individualism and residential inde-

pendence. Cultural norms may thus particularly

affect the frequency and meaning of returning

home. International migrants and their offspring

form an increasing proportion of the population

in many European countries (Eurostat, 2011). It

is crucial, therefore, to gain more insight into the

patterns of returning home among young people

from migrant families who are inuenced by

the cultural norms held by their parents and

the more individualistic society in which they

grow up.

Existing studies including racial–ethnic dif-

ferences in returning home are conned to North

America (Britton, 2013; Lei & South, 2016;

Mitchell, Wister, & Gee, 2004). This article pro-

vides rst insights for Europe, examining ethnic

variation in returning home among young adults

living in the Netherlands. We focus on the sec-

ond generation of the four largest non-Western

immigrant groups in the country (Turks, Moroc-

cans, Surinamese, Antilleans) and native Dutch.

The Netherlands is a valuable case study given

its ethnically diverse population composition

with differing norms and values regarding inter-

generational coresidence (de Valk & Liefbroer,

2007b). Contrary to the generally late age at

leaving home in the origin countries, migrant

youth in the Netherlands leave the parental

home at younger ages than native Dutch youth,

which has been suggested to relate to higher

levels of conict in migrant families (Zorlu &

Mulder, 2011). However, leaving home earlier

does not necessarily mean that family bonds are

neglected: Collectivistic family ties may be more

important for returns to the parental home.

To study the mechanisms underlying eth-

nic differences in returning home, a life course

framework is needed that emphasizes how ear-

lier life events impact those that occur in later

life (Giele & Elder, 1998). Ethnic differences

in the timing of leaving home may strongly

affect subsequent home-returning behavior.Fur-

thermore, previous research has highlighted the

importance of turning point events in the life

course (e.g., losing a job, union dissolution)

as predictors of home returning (Stone et al.,

2014). The timing and frequency of these turn-

ing points also differ between ethnic groups.

For instance, second-generation migrants in the

Netherlands are generally less successful than

natives in the labor market (van der Vliet, Ooije-

vaar, & Wobma, 2014). Life course transitions

in other domains may thus affect the associa-

tion between ethnicity and home returning. In

addition, the impact of partnership transitions

on returning home might differ by ethnic group:

Qualitative research suggests that Turkish and

Moroccan youth may be less likely to rejoin

the parental home after divorce because their

parents deem divorce as socially unacceptable

(Sterckx & Bouw, 2005). Ethnicity may thus

moderate the impact of partnership dynamics

on returning home. This study seeks answers to

the following three research questions: To what

extent are there differences in the likelihood of

returning to the parental home between Turk-

ish, Moroccan, Surinamese, and Antillean sec-

ond generation and native Dutch young adults?

To what extent are differences in the timing

and occurrence of key life events related to