Journal of Youth Studies

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The timing of and reasons why young people in

Germany return to their parental home

Anne Berngruber

To cite this article: Anne Berngruber (2021) The timing of and reasons why young people
in Germany return to their parental home, Journal of Youth Studies, 24:2, 213-231, DOI:
10.1080/13676261.2020.1714566

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JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES
2021, VOL. 24, NO. 2, 213–231
https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2020.1714566

The timing of and reasons why young people in Germany

return to their parental home
Anne Berngruber
German Youth Institute (DJI), Munich, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

From a life course perspective, living independently, outside of the Received 2 October 2018
parental home is widely considered to be a key step towards Accepted 5 January 2020
adulthood. However, leaving the parental home can be a
KEYWORDS
reversible process. This article provides empirical evidence of Life course research;
several ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors affecting the timing, and therefore likelihood to return; young
the likelihood of young people’s return to the parental home in adults; transition markers;
Germany. The discrete-time survival analysis used here is based AID:A; Germany
on the second wave of the survey AID:A conducted by the
German Youth Institute in 2014/15. The sample comprises 5,518
young adults aged 18–32 years who have already moved out of
their parental home at least once. The results show that a return
is more likely if the young adults become unemployed, when they
finish university or if they left home with the intention of this
being only a temporary change (e.g. stay abroad, social year). In
the light of this evidence, young adults’ spatial mobility can be
considered not so much the result of voluntary decisions made by
the actors themselves, but can rather be seen as being dependent
on their ability to take further steps towards adulthood with some
certainty that these steps will not need to be reversed.

Introduction
From a life course perspective, one of the key developmental steps expected of young
people on the path towards adulthood is that they will move out from their parental
home and live independently. Other key steps include financial independence from
parents and starting one’s own family (e.g. Shanahan 2000). The achievement of these
classical steps is seen as important for taking on relevant adult roles, taking on responsi-
bility for oneself and others and, in doing so, becoming a full member of society.
Leaving the parental home is not necessarily a one-time event in life. It can be a revers-
ible process, meaning that after moving out from their parental home for the first time,
young people can become residentially dependent on their family of origin again: It
happens that young adults move out from home and return to live with their parents
again once, or perhaps even several times (e.g. Konietzka and Huinink 2003). van den
Berg, Kalmijn, and Leopold (2018, 680) even describe this process as ‘a good example
of increasing fluidity in the life course’.

CONTACT Anne Berngruber berngruber@dji.de German Youth Institute (DJI), Nockherstrasse 2, 81541 Munich,
Germany
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
214 A. BERNGRUBER

As a term describing young adults who have left home and come back at least once, the
provocative metaphor ‘boomerang’ – similar to the action of a boomerang, returning to
the thrower – has become well-established in Anglo-Saxon literature. Research literature
and media often refer to these returners as the ‘Boomerang Age’ (Mitchell 2006a), ‘Gener-
ation Boomerang’ (Berngruber 2015a), ‘Boomerang Kids’ or even ‘Previously Launched
Adults’ (Farris 2016). These references contain the assumption that the young people in
question transition from independence back to dependence (Jones 1995).
Especially in countries like the US and Southern countries, the media report that the
rate of ‘boomeranging’ among young adults is currently increasing. In particular, the
rising unemployment rate – itself a result of the financial crisis – is often put forward as
an explanation for this trend. In Germany, as a country which was not hit that hard by
the economic crisis, returners are also a topic of rising interest in the media (e.g. Schönber-
ger 2016; Dießelkämper 2019).
The option of returning to the parental home can be helpful during difficult times such
as periods of unemployment, temporary financial insecurity or health problems, which can
be drastic experiences in life. From a life course perspective, such transitions, which can
change the direction of a person’s life, are called ‘turning points’ (Elder, Kirkpatrick
Johnson, and Crosnoe 2003, 8). DaVanzo and Goldscheider (1990, 255) observe that ‘the
parental home is not only a ‘safety net’ for young adults who have run into unexpected
twists on the road to independence, but also a ‘home base’ to return to while encounter-
ing many of the often frequent changes that occur at this stage of the life course’. Accord-
ing to Bengtson (2001, 8), living together with parents can be understood as a form of
‘functional solidarity’.
Nevertheless, living together under one roof again can prove to be a challenge both for
children and for their parents in daily life. On the one hand, returners have often estab-
lished their own daily routine (e.g. cooking, household chores) during the time spent
living away from the parental home. They have taken on and experienced several adult
roles, made their own consumption decisions and experienced freedom from parental
supervision (Mulder 2009). On the other hand, parents been through the experience of
an ‘empty nest’ or at least an ‘emptier nest’ (e.g. Mitchell and Wister 2015) and are
likely to have adjusted to this, organizing their free time accordingly and establishing
new routines. Therefore, returning home can lead to the reemergence of ‘old habits’
among the family members, but can also necessitate more negotiation processes
between parents and young people if both parties are to adapt to this new situation.
Living under one roof with one’s parents again often involves returning to a situation of
more, rather than less, dependency on the parents. Previous research indicates that retur-
ners not only behave more immaturely and revert to earlier patterns of dependence on
their parents, but also feel less adult than those who live away from their parents (e.g.
Clemens and Axelson 1985; Berngruber 2013). However, the intensity of the feeling of
being less of an adult may well depend on the young people’s age, the length of time
they lived away from the parental home (i.e. weeks or years), their motives for leaving
and their reasons for returning (i.e. a year abroad, a broken relationship).
The following article provides new evidence of several ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors affecting
the timing, and therefore, the likelihood of young people in Germany returning to their
parents’ home. From a life course perspective, the key advantage of research into the
timing of young people’s return to their parents’ home is its connection with the timing
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 215

of a number of other life course transitions. Questions that can be pursued include
whether or not transitions from youth to adulthood have any influence on young
people’s decision to return home, and whether the occurrence of earlier or later transitions
is related to the likelihood of returning at an earlier or later date.
The focus of this paper’s analysis is on the influence of the timing at which a range of
transition markers occurred for the first time in a young person’s life, the subjective
motives which young people offer to explain their decision to leave the parental home
for the first time, and the socio-demographic factors which affect the likelihood of return-
ing to the parental home.
The empirical analysis presented in this paper is based on a sample of 5,518 young
adults aged between 18 and 32 who have already moved out from the parental home
at least once.
The survey data were collected by the German Youth Institute (DJI) in the years 2014
and 2015.
A discrete-time survival analysis, based on a binary logistic regression model, was used
to estimate the likelihood of return. Following this, the interaction effects in the regression
model were predicted using average marginal effects (AMEs).
This article is structured as follows: The next section offers an overview of the current
state of research on the determinants of returning to the parental home. A number of
assumptions are made on the basis of the literature, after which information is provided
on the data and methods used in the present study, including study design, sample,
and a description of the data. The empirical results of descriptive and multivariate analysis
are then presented and discussed in the final section.

Returning to the parental home in the German context

Comparative survey data for different countries show that there is a significantly higher
rate of return for young adults in Southern or Eastern European countries, Canada, the
USA and the UK, than for those in Nordic or Western European countries like Germany
(Mitchell 2006b; Iacovou and Parisi 2009; Arundel and Lennartz 2017). Several German
studies report a rate of about 10% returners (Härtl 1996; Scherger 2007; Konietzka 2010;
Berngruber 2013).
There might be different explanations for the comparatively low returning rate in
Germany. First of all, compared with other European countries, Germany is a country
where young people leave the parental home relatively early in life. There is a strong
North-West to South-East divide where young people in Northern and Western European
countries (e.g. Denmark, France) live less often with their parents than their counterparts in
Southern or Eastern European countries (e.g. Bulgaria, Portugal) (Eurostat 2019a). Like in
other western societies, there is a gender gap in the age of home-leaving: women are
younger than men when they move out from home. Konietzka and Tatjes (2018) show
that young women from the 1975 to 1984 cohort left the parental home at a median
age of 20.6 and young men at a median age of 22.5. It is relatively uncommon for
Germans to leave the parental home before their 18th birthday (e.g. Berngruber 2013).
The option of receiving welfare benefits in order to finance housing and living expenses
is an important factor in the degree to which young adults require financial assistance
from other sources, the most obvious of which is their parents. In Germany, which is
216 A. BERNGRUBER

usually classified as a conservative welfare state (e.g. Esping-Andersen 1999), various forms
of public assistance like financial benefits in case of unemployment and student loans for
young people undertaking higher education at university (e.g. ‘BAföG’) are available.
Germany is also the country with the biggest rental market in Europe: in 2017, 48.6% of
the population rented a house or a flat rather than owning it (Eurostat 2019b). South
and East European countries, by contrast, are more characterized by homeownership.
Renting a flat makes it easier for young people to leave the parental home without the
long-term commitment of purchasing a property and most likely having to take out a
mortgage.
Successful school-to-work transitions and the availability of qualified training positions
as well as permanent jobs are also important considerations for young people deciding
where they should live. A high rate of youth unemployment in a country can lead to a
high level of uncertainty in planning the future and thus encourage young people to
decide to live with their parents. In Germany, the rate of unemployment among young
people aged between 15 and 24 years has been significantly low over the last 30 years.
During that period, the highest rate of youth unemployment was 7.7% in 2005. Since
then – during the economic crisis – it even fell by more than half, sinking as a low as
3.4% in 2017 (Eurostat 2019c). Nevertheless, there are regional differences between East
and West Germany: youth unemployment is higher in East Germany than in West
Germany (Brenke 2013, 6–7).

Previous research and assumptions about ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors affecting the
likelihood of young people’s return
The timing of first transition markers and ‘turning points’
While the phenomenon of young people returning to their parental home is often framed
as a recent trend, it was already the object of social scientific research in the USA and
Canada in the 1980s (e.g. Clemens and Axelson 1985; Boyd and Pryor 1989).
Over the ensuing decades, interest in the field continued to grow and a number of sig-
nificant articles were published (e.g. DaVanzo and Goldscheider 1990; Goldscheider and
Goldscheider 1999; Gee, Mitchell, and Wister 2003; Mitchell 2006a).
In more recent years, the quantity of research in this field has continued to increase–
especially in Anglo-Saxon countries (e.g. Stone, Berrington, and Falkingham 2014; Sand-
berg-Thoma, Snyder, and Jang 2015; South and Lei 2015; Burn and Szoeke 2016; Farris
2016; Guzzo 2016; Roberts et al. 2016; Tosi and Grundy 2018). Additionally, the topic is
gaining the attention of a number of researchers in Europe (e.g. Gentile 2010; Gaviria
2016; Arundel and Lennartz 2017; Hill and Bosick 2017; Oksanen et al. 2017).
For Germany, research on returners remains relatively scarce. In particular, research tar-
geting the question of when and why young people return to the parental home after the
first experience of residential independence is still lacking. In previous research, Berngru-
ber (2013, 2015a) compared young adults who had left the parental home at least once
and were living with at least one parent again (returners) with those who were living
outside the parental home (leavers) when they were interviewed. In her research, the
author focused on the influence of life course transitions and socio-demographic factors
on the likelihood of being a returner. The results indicated that if the achievement of tran-
sition markers is delayed or reversed, the likelihood of young people returning to live with
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 217

their parents increases. The comparison of those two groups was based on cross-sectional
data. A recent study by van den Berg, Kalmijn, and Leopold (2018) with longitudinal data
found evidence that leaving home ‘off-time’ – a term the authors use to describe situations
in which young people leave home unexpectedly or unintentionally – makes it more likely
for young people to return than leaving ‘on-time’. The authors also showed that transitions
which were made after leaving home – especially the experience of ‘turning points’ –
increased the likelihood of returning.
Drawing on the results of previous studies into the process of leaving home and return-
ing home, it is possible to draw a number of assumptions regarding the influence of life
course transitions on the likelihood of young people returning home.
Research into leaving the parental home shows that the timing is strongly linked to
several first transition markers which occur in a young person’s life. While in the past
young adults in Germany were more likely to leave home when they experienced
‘social transition markers’, which are steps towards starting their own family like marriage
or having children, moving out is now more closely linked to ‘economic transition
markers’, which are steps towards financial independence from the parents like
finishing school, starting studies at university or beginning a job (e.g. Konietzka 2010).
However, the linkage of the timing of leaving the parental home for the first time with
social or economic transitions is also dependent on the young adults’ level of education
(e.g. Berngruber 2016). Some progress towards the achievement of, or the actual achieve-
ment of, certain markers in life increases the likelihood that young people will experience a
‘push’ to leave the parental home.
As far as the likelihood of returning home is concerned, it seems obvious to assume that
the achievement of certain transitions also acts to ‘keep young people away’ from the par-
ental home. Previous research supports this assumption. Young adults who have already
experienced social and economic transition markers such as cohabitation, marriage and
regular employment are less likely to return to the parental home (Berngruber 2015a;
van den Berg, Kalmijn, and Leopold 2018). For example, the more relationships are stabil-
ized, most of all by marriage and birth of a child, the less likely young adults are to return
home (e.g. DaVanzo and Goldscheider 1990; Gee, Mitchell, and Wister 1995). It can be sup-
posed that the more steps the young adults have taken towards financial independence
from their family of origin, the less likely they are to return. The experience of taking on
some adult roles (e.g. being responsible for themselves, making their own decisions and
managing their own household without permanent supervision by their parents), the
support of new social networks and the increase of rights to social welfare benefits
when living away from the family of origin surely have an impact on a young person’s
decision whether or not to live under their parents’ roof again.
The reversibility of transitions might ‘pull’ young people back into the parents’ house-
hold. Several ‘turning points’ in life can be identified as reasons for returning home: Com-
pleting a university degree, being in a precarious and temporary employment situation as
a young professional, unemployment and the break-up of a relationship make a return
more likely (e.g. Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1999; Mitchell, Wister, and Gee 2000;
Stone, Berrington, and Falkingham 2014; Arundel and Lennartz 2017; van den Berg,
Kalmijn, and Leopold 2018). Financial problems like debts, for example caused by
student loans, seem to be a strong predictor for returning home (e.g. Houle and Warner
2017; Oksanen et al. 2017). Where a young person suffers from mental and/or physical
218 A. BERNGRUBER

health problems, these may motivate a return to the parental home, where support is
offered (Sandberg-Thoma, Snyder, and Jang 2015; South and Lei 2015). In this way,
having the opportunity to return to the parental home in the wake of such ‘turning
points’ can be understood as a form of familial support for young adults. Free accommo-
dation with the parents can be helpful during periods of financial difficulty (e.g. DaVanzo
and Goldscheider 1990; Mitchell 2006b).

Subjective motives why young people left the parental home for the first time
Stone, Berrington, and Falkingham (2014, 273) assert that it is ‘also important to consider
pathways out of the parental home as a predictor of returning’. Research by Goldscheider
and Goldscheider (1999, 45) found that patterns of leaving the parental home and return-
ing home are closely connected. Certain ‘routes out of the home’ which have an in-built
time limit are by definition predestined for returns. Examples of these include routes
such as military service and college. Goldscheider and Goldscheider (1999, 47) call these
‘semiautonomous routes’. Therefore, it can be assumed that a stay abroad, military or
civil service or, for example, a social year can be seen as such semiautonomous routes
with a correspondingly higher likelihood of returning.
The wish to be independent as a subjective reason for moving out in the first place has
been identified as a strong magnet which drags young adults away from home. Berngru-
ber (2015b, 57) found that the wish to be independent was named as the most important
reason for leaving the parental home.
The relationship between young adults and their parents might also influence the
decision to return (e.g. Berngruber 2015a). In this article, conflicts between young adults
and their parents are analyzed as a subjective motive for leaving the parental home for
the first time. It is assumed that ongoing parent–child conflicts make a return less likely.

Socio-demographic determinants
Furthermore, socio-demographic determinants can also influence young people’s decision
whether or not to return home. In Germany, as in almost all western societies, young men
stay with their parents for longer before leaving home for the first time than do young
women (e.g. Berngruber 2013; Konietzka and Tatjes 2018). Although several international
studies have shown that young men also return more often than young women (e.g. Gold-
scheider and Goldscheider 1999; Arundel and Lennartz 2017), research to date has found
no gender difference in the case of Germany (Berngruber 2015a; van den Berg, Kalmijn,
and Leopold 2018).
Several international studies have shown that the decision to return home is also
influenced by the structure of the young person’s family. Young people growing up in
non-traditional family forms, such as one-parent families or stepfamilies, are less likely
to return than those from two-parent families (e.g. Goldscheider and Goldscheider
1999; Beaupré, Turcotte, and Milan 2006; Berngruber 2013; van den Berg, Kalmijn, and
Leopold 2018). A more conflictual parent–child relationship or fewer financial resources
in alternative family structures may also contribute to explaining why a young person
might not return.
Regional differences between East and West Germany in the process of leaving home
can be expected. East Germans leave the parental home earlier than West Germans (e.g.
Konietzka and Tatjes 2012; Berngruber 2013). This difference could be accounted for by
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 219

the fact that in East Germany, leaving the parental home is more often linked to ‘economic
transition markers’ like starting a new job or university studies (Berngruber 2016). Despite
these differences, previous empirical results reported by Berngruber (2015a) showed no
statistically significant difference between East and West Germans with regard to the
returning home process.
Drawing inferences from international studies about the impact of young adults’ ethnic
origin on housing transitions is a complex undertaking, because studies pay attention to
those ethno-cultural groups which are most often represented in the given country.
Persons with Turkish nationality are the largest group of migrants in Germany (Statis-
tisches Bundesamt 2018, 88). Recent studies of German patterns of leaving home for
the first time indicate that young adults of Turkish origin stay with their parents longer
than those of German origin (e.g. Windzio 2011; Berngruber 2013). It is assumed that
the familial values specific to these young Turkish adults lead to a more frequent return
to the parental home among this group. Berngruber (2015a) found that young adults of
Turkish origin also return more often than those of non-Turkish origin.
It is expected that the likelihood of return depends on the age at which young people
leave their parents’ home for the first time. Previous research appears to indicate that
those who leave home at younger ages return more often than those who wait until
they are older before moving out for the first time (e.g. Goldscheider and Goldscheider
1999; Beaupré, Turcotte, and Milan 2006).
While many adults have the option, at least in principle, of returning to their parental
home at any age in life, moving back becomes less likely as young adults grow older
(e.g. Gee, Mitchell, and Wister 1995; Stone, Berrington, and Falkingham 2014) and
achieve key social and economic ‘transition markers’.

Data and methods

Study design and sample
The analysis reported in this paper uses data from the second wave of the large-scale
survey AID:A (in German: ‘Aufwachsen in Deutschland: Alltagswelten’). The survey was
conducted by the German Youth Institute (DJI). The overarching aim of the survey was
to provide information about the living situation of children, adolescents, young adults
and families in Germany. It also included retrospective questions about different transition
markers for young adults. This means that the young people who took part in the survey
were asked if they had already experienced certain biographical events in life and, if so, in
which specific calendar year the events occurred. The advantage of such retrospective
questions is that they make it possible to gain time-dependent information about
young people’s past life events in cross-sectional data.
On the basis of the first wave (conducted in 2009), as far as returners were concerned, it
was only possible to draw comparisons between young adults who were currently living
outside of the parental home and those who had left and were currently living with their
parents again (see Berngruber 2015a). Fortunately for the purposes of the study presented
here, the second wave of the survey included questions about whether those young adults
who had already left the parental home for the first time had ever returned and, if so,
when. The sample was drawn from the German population registers, disproportionately
220 A. BERNGRUBER

by age and region, in order to analyze a sufficiently large number of cases. For the follow-
ing analysis, self-reports (gathered from June 2014 to April 2015) of 5,518 young adults
aged 18–32 years who had already moved out of home at least once were used as a sub-
sample (for more information about the second wave of AID:A see Aust et al. 2015).

Dependent variable
The question which was posed to young adults aged 18–32 years who said that they had
left the parental home at least once was ‘Have you ever moved back to your parents’
home?’, and the possible answers they could select from were ‘never’, ‘once’ and ‘several
times’. Those young adults who had moved back once or several times were then
asked an additional question: ‘When did you move back for the first time? Please name
the calendar year’.
The subsample of 5,518 young adults contains 63% of young adults who never moved
back to their parents’ home, 31% who had moved back once and 6% who had moved back
several times. It was left up to the participants themselves to decide what constitutes a
‘return’ to the parental home. The interviewers refrained from imposing conditions or
restrictions on the definition of a ‘return’, such as a minimum length of time spent
living in the parental home (which in the literature is often stipulated as being a
minimum of three months). For the analysis, the status variable with the values 0 ‘has
never moved back’ and 1 ‘has moved back at least once’ was coded.

Independent variables
The following Table 1 shows descriptive results. The table is separated into time-depen-
dent and time-independent covariates. Social transition markers (like having been in a
relationship which lasted for at least one year, living with a partner for the first time
and the birth of the first child) as well as economic transition markers (like finishing
school, starting a first course of vocational training or university studies, finishing the
first course of vocational training or university studies, starting a job for the first time
and experiencing unemployment for the first time) are used as time-dependent variables.
‘Time-dependent’ means that the timing of the return can be linked to the timing of econ-
omic and social transition markers by the information about the calendar year in which the
transition has occurred. In the table, the percentage of those young adults who have
already experienced the specific transition marker is shown.
The descriptive results show that three out of four young adults have had a long-term
relationship, one third have already cohabited with a partner and just 8.6% have had their
first child. In this age group, almost all young adults have already finished school, eight out
of ten have started their first course of vocational training or university studies and four
out of ten have already completed these. More than 40% have started their first job,
and 12% have already experienced unemployment.
The young adults in the sample were also asked about their subjective motives for
leaving the parental home for the first time (time-independent variables). Two-thirds
wished to be independent. 13% went abroad, 8% left home for military or civil service
or did a voluntary social year or federal voluntary service. Just 7% left home due to
ongoing conflicts with their parents. Further socio-demographic covariates are also
included in Table 1, but these will not be explained in detail here.
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 221

Table 1. Description of time-dependent and time-independent variables used in the analysis

(observations, %, mean, standard deviation).
%/ Std.
Variables Category Obs. Mean Dev.
Time-Dependent Covariates (transitions)
Social Transition Markers
First Long-Term Relationship (> = 1 year) 5,429 76.9
First Cohabitation 5,500 32.2
Birth of first child 5,516 8.6

Economic Transition Markers

First Finishing School 5,453 95.9
Starting First Vocational Training or University 5,500 80.8
Studies
Finishing First Vocational Training or 5,514 40.1
University Studies
Starting First Job 5,485 43.1
First Unemployment 5,512 12.3
Time-Independent Covariates
Subjective Motives of First Leaving Home
Military/ Civil Service/ Voluntary Social Year/ No 5,079 92.1
Federal Voluntary Service
Yes 436 7.9
Desire to be Independent No 1,841 33.4
Yes 3,675 66.6
Ongoing Conflicts with Parents No 5,145 93.3
Yes 370 6.7
Stay Abroad No 4,801 87.0
Yes 715 13.0
Socio-Demographic Covariates
Age Groups 18–21 years 706 12.8
22–25 years 1,648 29.9
26–29 years 1,859 33.7
30–32 years 1,305 23.7
Sex Female 2,890 52.4
Male 2,628 47.6
Birth region West Germany/ West Berlin 4,360 79.2
East Germany/ East Berlin 743 13.5
Foreign countries 405 7.4
Ethnic origina Germany (parents and young adults are born 3,988 72.3
in Germany)
Northern and Western Europe 213 3.9
Eastern Europe 752 13.6
Southern Europe 153 2.8
Turkey 114 2.1
Other countries 297 5.4
Educational level Lower or No Secondary School Certificate 304 5.5
(‘Hauptschule’ or no grad.)
Secondary School Certificate (‘Mittlere Reife’) 992 18.0
University of Applied Sciences Entrance 663 12.1
Certificate (‘FH-Reife’)
University Entrance Certificate (‘Abitur’) 3,544 64.4
Number of Siblings No Siblings 640 11.6
One Sibling 2,593 47.0
Two and more Siblings 2,284 41.4
Separation of the parents No 4,627 83.9
Yes 885 16.1
Type of Interview First Interview 4,201 76.1
Panel Interview 1,317 23.9
Mode of Interview Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview 5,118 92.7
(CATI)
Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) 400 7.3

(Continued )
222 A. BERNGRUBER

Table 1. Continued.
%/ Std.
Variables Category Obs. Mean Dev.
Timing of Interview in the Course of Field In Days (metric) 5,518 178.7 77.4
Time
Age of First Leaving Home 15–32 years (metric) 5,518 21.1 2.7
Source: DJI-Survey AID:A 2014/15; own calculations.
a
Country of origin of at least one parent and the young adult, i.e. first or second generation. For categories see United
Nations Statistics Division (2019).

Method
The timing of young people’s return to the parental home is analyzed using event history
analysis (also known as survival analysis in some disciplines). The time at risk of experien-
cing the event is set as starting at age 15 and has a maximum at age 32, since only indi-
viduals up to this age were interviewed.1 Kaplan-Meier estimates are calculated for the
descriptive analysis. Compared with simple mean or median calculations, the benefit of
this method is that young people who have already experienced a return are included,
as well as those young adults who have not (yet) experienced that transition, who enter
the estimation as right-censored data. The 95%-confidence intervals are depicted as an
easily interpretable measure of variance. In the subsequent multivariate analysis, a dis-
crete-time survival model (estimated using logit regressions) is used (for more information
see e.g. Blossfeld, Golsch, and Rohwer 2007). For a more straightforward interpretation of
interaction effects in these nonlinear models, average marginal effects (AMEs) are pre-
dicted (e.g. Williams 2012).

Results
Descriptions
As shown in Figure 1, the likelihood of returning is the same for both men and women: The
95%-confidence intervals of both curves continually overlap. Therefore, no statistically sig-
nificant difference can be observed between men and women regarding the likelihood of
their moving back to the parental home.
A strong decrease in the slope of both curves within the first four years after the young
adults initially left home is also noticeable: 25% of these young people returned within this
period. The slope of the curves becomes flatter after four years. Therefore, young people
are more likely to return within the first few years after leaving the parental home for the
first time than returning later. That means that living independently over a longer period
reduces the likelihood of returning. The residential detachment after leaving home for the
first time becomes more permanent the longer the young adults live outside the parental
home. The median duration for living separately from the parents is ten years using a
Kaplan-Meier estimator, which means that 50% of the young adults who left the parental
home for the first time returned within the first ten years.
Table 2 reports the ß-coefficients of the discrete-time survival analysis model (a binary
logistic regression model) in order to estimate the individual’s probability of returning to
the parental home after having left for the first time.
First, the effects of the timing of several transition markers on the likelihood of returning
are described. Social transition markers like a first long-term relationship lasting at least one
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 223

Figure 1. Timing of returning to the parental home for the first time by gender. Source: DJI-Survey
AID:A 2014/15; n = 5,518; Kaplan-Meier survival estimates with 95% confidence intervals; own
calculations.

year and living together with a partner for the first time lead to significantly fewer returns.
Starting a family by having a first child shows no statistically significant effect, which is
probably due to the small number of individuals in this age group of this sample who
have already experienced that life transition.
Regarding several economic transition markers, different effects are found for the likeli-
hood of returning. Completing school education shows no statistically significant differ-
ence compared with those who have not yet finished school. In Germany, whether or
not one proceeds to university or to vocational training upon leaving school strongly
depends on the type of school leaving certificate one achieves. A university entrance cer-
tificate (‘Abitur’) or a university of applied sciences entrance certificate (‘Fachhochschul-
reife’) are usually prerequisite to go to university. The majority of young people with a
university entrance certificate also go to university (Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstat-
tung 2018, 155). Therefore, the interaction between starting first vocational training or uni-
versity studies and the type of school leaving certificate held by the young adults needs to
be calculated. For a better interpretation of the effects, average marginal effects (AMEs) are
shown in Table 3: In the subgroup of young adults with a lower or no secondary school
certificate, the commencement of vocational training or university studies increases the
probability of returning by 6.9 percentage points. In the subgroup of those with a univer-
sity entrance certificate, starting vocational training or university studies reduces the prob-
ability of returning by 3.1 percentage points. In the other groups, commencing vocational
training or studies has no statistically significant effect on returns. The interaction effects
224 A. BERNGRUBER

Table 2. Discrete-Time Survival Analysis for the Likelihood to Return, ß-Coefficients.

Social Transition Markers (Time-Dependent Covariates)
First Long-Term Relationship (> = 1 year) −0.245**
First Cohabitation −0.475***
Birth of first child −0.208
Economic Markers (Time-Dependent Covariates)
First Finishing School −0.114
First Starting Vocational Training or University Studies 1.155*
First Starting Vocational Training or University Studies * Educational Level
Lower or No Secondary School Certificate (‘Hauptschule’ or no grad.) ref.
Secondary School Certificate (‘Mittlere Reife’) −1.523**
University of Applied Sciences Entrance Certificate (‘FH-Reife’) −1.305*
University Entrance Certificate (‘Abitur’) −1.562**
First Finishing Vocational Training or University Studies −0.362
First Finishing Vocational Training or University Studies * Educational Level
Lower or No Secondary School Certificate (‘Hauptschule’ or no grad.) ref.
Secondary School Certificate (‘Mittlere Reife’) 0.678
University of Applied Sciences Entrance Certificate (‘FH-Reife’) 0.862*
University Entrance Certificate (‘Abitur’) 1.303**
First Starting a Job 0.021
First Unemployment 0.560***
Subjective Motives of First Leaving Home (Time-Independent Covariates)
Military/Civil Service/Voluntary Social Year/Federal Voluntary Service 0.423***
Stay Abroad 1.018***
Desire to be Independent −0.386***
Ongoing Conflicts with Parents 0.204*
Socio-Demographic Covariates (Time-Independent Covariates)
Age of First Leaving Home (in years) −0.051***
Male (ref. Female) 0.064
Educational Level
Lower or No Secondary School Certificate (‘Hauptschule’ or no grad.) ref.
Secondary School Certificate (‘Mittlere Reife’) 0.659
University of Applied Sciences Entrance Certificate (‘FH-Reife’) 0.494
University Entrance Certificate (‘Abitur’) 0.406
Birth region
West Germany/ West Berlin ref.
East Germany/ East Berlin −0.320***
Foreign countries −0.187
Ethnic origin
Germany ref.
Northern and Western Europe 0.044
Eastern Europe 0.035
Southern Europe −0.080
Turkey 0.287
Other Countries 0.237*
Number of Siblings
No Siblings ref.
One Sibling 0.026
Two and more Siblings 0.049
Separation of the parents −0.239**
Panel Interview (ref. first-time interview) −0.093
Mode of Interview: CAPI (ref. CATI) −1.236***
Timing of Interview in the Course of Field Time −0.001
Year Dummiesa
1 ref.
2 1.631***
3 1.107***
4 1.337***
5 1.134***
6 0.888***
7 0.660***
8 0.407*
9 0.072
10 −0.616
11 −0.052
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 225

12 −0.544
13 −0.602
14 −0.452
Age Groups (in years)
18–21 ref.
22–25 −0.471***
26–29 −0.624***
30–32 −0.933***
Constant −1.646***
Observations 5,304
Observations in person-years 25,900
Failures 2,015
Pseudo-R² (McFadden) 0.124
Source: DJI-Survey AID:A 2014/15; own calculations. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001
a
Year 1 is the likelihood to return within the same year as the young adults left the parental home. Year 2 shows the like-
lihood to return within one to two years after the young adults left the parental home and so on.

Table 3. Average marginal effects of starting first vocational training or university studies on returning
to the parental home.
95% CI
Point est. P>|z| Lower bound Upper bound
Educational Level
Lower or No Secondary School Certificate (‘Hauptschule’ or no grad.) 6.9% 0.007 1.9% 12.0%
Secondary School Certificate (‘Mittlere Reife’) −2.6% 0.206 −6.7% 1.4%
University of Applied Sciences Entrance Certificate (‘FH-Reife’) −1.1% 0.590 −5.1% 2.9%
University Entrance Certificate (‘Abitur’) −3.1% 0.005 5.2% −0.9%
Source: DJI-Survey AID:A 2014/15; own estimations. Predictions from regression model in Table 2.

for finishing vocational training and educational level on returns were also estimated with
AMEs (see Table 4): Statistically significant effects are seen for young adults with a higher
educational level. In the subgroup of those with a university of applied sciences entrance
certificate, finishing first vocational training or university studies increases the probability
of returning by 3.5 percentage points. In the subgroup with a university entrance certifi-
cate, this rises by 6.1 percentage points.
Starting a job shows no significant difference in the likelihood of returning compared
with those who have not yet started a job. However, becoming unemployed increases
the likelihood of a return.
Second, certain subjective motives named by the young adults as reasons for leaving the
parental home were also investigated. As might be expected, move-outs which are just for
a limited period of time, such as stays abroad or a voluntary social year, increase the

Table 4. Average marginal effects of finishing first vocational training or university studies on returning
to the parental home.
95% CI
Point est. P>|z| Lower bound Upper bound
Educational Level
Lower or No Secondary School Certificate (‘Hauptschule’ or no grad.) −3.0% 0.383 −9.8% 3.8%
Secondary School Certificate (‘Mittlere Reife’) 1.9% 0.100 −0.4% 4.4%
University of Applied Sciences Entrance Certificate (‘FH-Reife’) 3.5% 0.006 1.0% 5.9%
University Entrance Certificate (‘Abitur’) 6.1% 0.000 5.1% 7.1%
Source: DJI-Survey AID:A 2014/15; own estimations. Predictions from regression model in Table 2.
226 A. BERNGRUBER

likelihood of returning. In this context, it must be noted that it is predominantly young

people with a higher level of education who undertake a visit abroad during school or
university.
Contrary to the expectation expressed at the beginning of this article, ongoing conflicts
with parents as a reason for leaving home actually make a return more likely. On the other
hand, the desire to be independent supports a permanent stay away from the parental
home.
Third, there are several socio-demographic variables which further increase or decrease
the incidence of moving back in with parents. A highly significant influence is the age at
which young people move out of the parental home for the first time2: The older the
young adults are when they leave home, the less likely they are to return. As already
seen in Figure 1, after controlling for further variables there is no statistically significant
difference among young women and men in the likelihood of returning. Young people
born in East Germany are less likely to return than those born in West Germany. Ethnic
origin only plays a role for those young adults if not only their parents but also they them-
selves were born in ‘other countries’, in which case a return becomes more likely. Young
adults whose parents are separated are less likely to return compared with those young
adults whose parents are still together.
As seen in Figure 1, the multivariate results also show that young people are more likely
to return within the first couple of years after leaving the parental home and less likely to
return after these first few years have elapsed. Age is also an important factor for return:
The older the young adults are, the less likely they are to report a return.
The mode of the interview was also associated with reporting a return: Young adults
who had a computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI), which means that an interviewer
talked face-to-face with the interviewee, were less likely to report a return than those who
had computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI), where interviewer and interviewee
talked on the phone.

Conclusions and discussion

This article provides new evidence on several ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors affecting the likeli-
hood of a return. Above all, it focuses on the influence of social and economic life
course transitions. Additionally, young people’s subjective motives for leaving the parental
home for the first time and socio-demographic factors are analyzed.
Generally, consistent with the findings of van den Berg, Kalmijn, and Leopold (2018)
and Berngruber (2015a), the likelihood of returning is highest over the course of the
first few years after leaving the parental home for the first time, and sinks the longer
young adults live independently from their parents. This indicates that the option of
living with parents becomes less likely when young people become older and further
durable transitions towards adulthood are made.
To summarize the most important previous findings, several ‘pull factors’ which make a
return more likely can be identified. First, in the case of young people with a university of
applied sciences entrance certificate (‘FH-Reife’) or of those who have completed the aca-
demic requirements to study at a university (‘Abitur’), the likelihood of returning increases
when these young people finish their university studies. So, young adults with a university
certificate leave home earlier than those with a lower certificate (e.g. Berngruber 2016), but
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 227

are also more likely to return to the parental home at a later date too. This finding might
indicate that young people who go to university are often dependent on their parents’
financial support as they usually don’t have a regular job during that time – although
side jobs or financial assistance in the form of a student loan like ‘BAföG’ can also help
to finance life as a student. A temporary move back to the parents’ home after graduation
may be necessary for these young adults as they try to find a job, especially so if they have
to move out of student accommodation or if their student loans run out.
Second, financial problems such as entry into unemployment increase the likelihood of
a return to the parental home. Therefore, not only is the timing of the first departure from
the parental home restricted by a young person’s own resources to finance independent
accommodation, but the loss of a job can also instigate a return to the parental home.
Especially in this situation, the family can function as a ‘safety net’, providing the oppor-
tunity of accommodation, presumably free of charge or perhaps for a nominal financial
contribution.
Third, a return becomes more likely when the reasons why young people move out in
the first place are inherently linked to a limited period of time. Specifically, young adults
who leave the parental home for the first time to go abroad or, for example, to do a volun-
tary social year, return more often. In these instances, it is usually clear beforehand that the
young adults will return and might therefore come as no surprise for the families when this
happens.
By contrast, there are also several indicators which ‘push’ the young adults out of the
parental home and ‘prevent’ a return. First, the achievement of social transition markers
like a first long-term relationship and the first experience of living together with a
partner, which are steps towards starting one’s own family, makes a return less likely.
Second, the later young people move out from their parents’ home for the first time,
the less likely they are to move in again. Third, young people who say they left the parental
home the first time because they wished to be independent return less often. Therefore,
the urge for separate living can be a strong motive for not living with the parents again.
Furthermore, the effect of the mode of the interview suggests that returning to the par-
ental home is a sensitive matter for young people. A face-to-face interview between inter-
viewer and interviewee seems to prevent more young people from talking about returns
than is the case in telephone interviews. This may be due to participants’ possible percep-
tion of living at home with their parents as being less social desirable. Therefore, the use of
survey methods needs to be reflected.
For Germany, this article is one of the first which provides empirical evidence about the
timing of young people’s returns to the parental home. The analysis used cross-sectional
data with retrospective questions about returns. Compared with panel data, cross-sec-
tional data may well offer an easier means of surveying young people’s return to the par-
ental home.
The period of young adulthood is a time when young people are highly mobile and,
therefore, hard to reach – especially during the process of leaving and returning home.
Nevertheless, to get the whole picture of the spatial detachment process, collecting panel
data is necessary. This type of data allows even more precise insights into this process
than the retrospective reports used here can provide. In this context, methodological limit-
ations can be identified. For the analysis, just the calendar year is known for the retrospective
228 A. BERNGRUBER

questions. Further research might be well-advised to collect data on a monthly basis to show
the linkage between the several transition markers in greater clarity.
Additionally, in-depth interviews which can give a deeper insight into a young person’s
subjective motives for returning as well as the parents’ perspective would be of further
research interest. It must be further noted that this article focuses on patterns of
housing transition among the general population. Further research might focus on
more marginalized young people like care leavers, where the transition out of residential
care to independent living or back to their parents might occur earlier and for different
reasons than in the general population (Köngeter, Schröer, and Zeller 2008, 70). Previous
research also shows that further reversed transition markers, such as the break-up of a
relationship, are a key event which might be considered in the future (e.g. Stone, Berring-
ton, and Falkingham 2014). Furthermore, it might have come as a surprise that ongoing
conflicts with the parents, which were named as one of the reasons for leaving the
parents’ home for the first time, lead to a higher likelihood of returning to the parental
home. It can only be speculated about the motives behind that decision (possibly a recon-
ciliation between the adult children and their parents when living independently). This is a
question which should be addressed in further research. The differentiation of early, inter-
mediate and late returners might be an interesting field of inquiry for Germany too.
Taken together, from a life course perspective, the results presented here show that
spatial independence is not so much a voluntary decision which young adults make,
but depends rather on their capacity to take further steps towards adulthood with
some planning certainty that these steps will not need to be reversed. In particular,
financial independence from their parents, facilitated by the availability of stable employ-
ment on the labor market, is an especially important factor in the young person’s decision
not to return. In this context, living with their parents can generally be seen as an impor-
tant instance of intergenerational solidarity when young people’s own resources are
lacking in the wake of abrupt changes to their lives.

Notes
1. In this article, just a time span of 14 years – instead of the expected 17 years – for a likely return
after the first move-out is shown. The reason is that there are no young adults in the sample
who returned after more than 14 years. Therefore, no statistical variance is provided for the
years 15, 16 and 17.
2. The timing (Kaplan-Meier estimates) of leaving the parental home for the first time is 20 years
for young women and 21 for young men in the subsample. In comparison to that, it must be
noted that the median age of all 18–32 year olds in both waves of AID:A is 21 years for young
women and 23 years for young men (own calculations of the author, not shown here). There-
fore, it must be noted that the young adults observed here were younger when they moved
out for the first time than all young adults aged 18–32 years, regardless of whether they had
returned. The reason for this younger age in this special group might be the missing right-cen-
sored data for people older than 32 years.

Acknowledgement
I am very grateful to Jane Waldmann and George Austin-Cliff for the English proofreading of the
manuscript.
 JOURNAL OF YOUTH STUDIES 229

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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