Family Structure and Leaving the Nest: A Social Resource Perspective

This article focuses on the role of family structure as a form of social capital (Coleman 1988) in the timing of and pathways for home-leaving behavior among youths. Using data from the 1987 Canadian Youth Foundation Survey, bivariate analyses of reasons for staying and leaving the nest and proportional hazards modeling of age at home-leaving support and extend previous research demonstrating the importance of family structure. Financial, human, and cultural capital, as well as sex and region, are also examined. The most striking finding is that youths exposed to biological and single-parent family environments are between five and six times as likely to remain at home than those exposed to stepfamily structures for the ages 15 to 24, net of the other variables. Interestingly, young adults living in both stepparent and single-parent families are more likely to report leaving home due to conflictual parent-child relations, and to leave the nest to achieve independence rather than to marry or pursue additional schooling. The findings are discussed in terms of their long-term consequences for youths.