Labor market transitions and the emancipation of young people

Abstract

Youth emancipation is defined as the state of independence that young people achieve when they have a job and can afford housing independent of their parents. In the last decade, Spain shows a growing number of young people who are not emancipated, while at the same time it is well above the average European age of emancipation. The delay of young people to adulthood generates problems for both economic growth and the welfare of young people. Among the factors that most affect this delay are the difficulties of access to employment and the quality of employment. Using data from the Spanish Survey of Living Conditions collected by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, I analyze how labor market transitions affect the probability of leaving the parental home. For this purpose, I use Abadie ́s (2005) Semiparametric difference-in-difference to investigate the relationship between the employment situation of young people and their residential emancipation.