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Leaving your mamma: why so late in Italy?

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  • Enrica Di Stefano

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

In Italy, young adults tend to postpone their transition to adulthood and live with their parents until very late compared with other countries. A dynamic discrete choice model is proposed in which agents choose residential arrangements, together with labor supply and marital status, conditional on the economic and institutional framework and on other agents’ choices. The model is structurally estimated with the Simulated Method of Moments for non-student high-school graduate males and then used to assess, through a variety of counterfactual experiments, the relative importance of factors that are claimed to influence the choice to leave home in the existing literature: labor market conditions, parental resources, housing market conditions and social interaction. Results suggest that Italians choose to remain with their parents due to a combination of poor labor market conditions and high housing costs. The relatively high income of parents could contribute to the patterns observed by acting as an insurance against unemployment. Finally, estimates indicate that individuals tend to conform to a social norm, especially in the South of the country were family ties and the costs in terms of utility from not complying with expected behaviors appear to be stronger.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrica Di Stefano, 2019. "Leaving your mamma: why so late in Italy?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 323-347, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:17:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11150-017-9392-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-017-9392-y
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    Cited by:

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    2. Fernando Alexandre & Pedro Bação & Miguel Portela, 2020. "Is the basic life-cycle theory of consumption becoming more relevant? Evidence from Portugal," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 93-116, March.
    3. Christopoulou, Rebekka & Pantalidou, Maria, 2022. "The parental home as labor market insurance for young Greeks during the Great Recession," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 313-350, September.
    4. Adelaido García-Andrés & Jose N. Martinez & Ernesto Aguayo-Téllez, 2021. "Leaving the Nest or Living with Parents: Evidence from Mexico’s Young Adult Population," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 913-933, September.

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