Home-leaving and its structural determinants in Western and Eastern Europe: An exploratory study

This paper focuses on the occurrence of home-leaving and its key structural determinants across the enlarged EU. By building on the literature for Western Europe and by cluster analysis of the data for 24 member states, it seeks to explore different constellations of structural factors, manifested in the grouping of similar countries, and possibly resulting in diverse, regionally specific incidences of home-leaving by youths under 35 years of age. The exploratory analysis noted three clusters of countries: the north-western, characterised by the earliest home-leaving and best opportunity structures for independent housing; the south-western cluster, marked by the latest leaving of the parental home and only somewhat less favourable opportunities, but highest family support; the north-eastern cluster, characterised by late, yet not extremely late, home-leaving, combined with outstandingly unfavourable opportunities and strikingly low family support. These differences, partly confirmed as statistically significant, are further discussed and related to welfare regime typologies and their usefulness.