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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 that is influenced by external conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrica Di Stefano, 2017. "Leaving your mamma: why so late in Italy?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1144, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1144_17
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    File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2017/2017-1144/en_tema_1144.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Martin Spielauer & Thomas Horvath & Walter Hyll & Marian Fink, 2020. "microWELT: Socio-Demographic Parameters and Projections for Austria, Spain, Finland, and the UK," WIFO Working Papers 611, WIFO.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    transition to adulthood; co-residence; structural estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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