Prices, Parents, and Young People's Household Formation

An economic theory of young people's decision to live apart from parents is presented and used to structure econometric analyses of the processes of leaving the parental home and returning to it, which employ data from the British Household Panel Survey for the first half of the 1990s. The econometric estimates support the predictions of the theory. In particular, tighter housing markets, as indicated by higher regional relative house prices, significantly retard home leaving, especially the formation of partnerships, and encourage returns to the parental home. Young people with larger current income are more likely to leave, but less likely to return to, the parental home.