Ethnic Differences in Intergenerational Coresidence: An Intersectional Approach

Ann Berrington , University of Southampton
Vincent Jerald Ramos, University of Southampton

In the UK, the proportion of young adults living with a parent has increased steadily. One explanation is increasing economic precarity facing young adults, particularly those unemployed or in insecure work. Existing studies have examined how these relationships differ by gender and parental background, but survey data do not have sufficient sample sizes to examine how ethnicity moderates these relationships. This paper uses a unique data source: census microdata of 10% of households in England and Wales, to contribute to our understanding of ethnic differences in intergenerational coresidence. We take an intersectional approach using Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy, which recognizes that demographic and socio-economic characteristics interact to form distinct intersectional strata—e.g., younger Pakistani men of low socio-economic status represent a different social grouping from relatively older White women of high socio-economic status. Each intersectional stratum is treated as a meaningful analytical unit. We examine two research questions: Among economically active young adults, how are unemployment and low skilled work associated with the likelihood of living with a parent? How are these relationships moderated by age, sex and ethnicity? Our analytical sample is around 900,000 economically active young adults aged 18-34 who were either born in the UK or who migrated before 16. We find that, among the total sample of young adults, unemployment was associated with a 42% increase in the odds of coresidence. However, the relationship between unemployment and coresidence differs significantly according to the intersecting dimensions of sex, age and ethnicity.

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 Presented in Session 21. Housing and Living Arrangements