Abstract
BackgroundAn important event in many young people’s lives is moving out of the parental home. This event is often operationalized as the distance between parents and their children, i.e., parent-child proximity.MethodsThe present study (N = 1,451) analyzed correlates of parent-child proximity through the lens of human value theory (Schwartz, Advances in experimental social psychology, 1992). Besides a classical proximity measure (i.e., parent-child), we also calculated the distance between childhood and current place of residence (i.e., childhood-now), as well as parent-childhood proximity (distance between children’s childhood place of residence and the current place of residence of parents), which acts as a control group because this distance is most probably chosen by the parents.ResultsAs hypothesized, we found that participants valuing universalism and self-direction as important (i.e., associated with growth and anxiety-freedom) moved further away from the place where their parents live and the place where they grew up than participants valuing self-protection and anxiety-avoidance (e.g., tradition, security, conformity).ConclusionsThis study not only adds to research on psychological motivations to move, it endorses value theory as being a useful lens through which to analyze migration behavior.
Highlights
An important event in many young people’s lives is moving out of the parental home
Moving from one place to another has always naturally occurred, typified by when children leave their homes for work or to set up families of their own [27]. This behavior has fallen under the umbrella topic of parent-child proximity (e.g., [15, 19, 23, 39])
Research about parent-child proximity has analyzed sociocultural aspects, such as through an examination of family bonds that are assumed to be tighter in southern regions of Europe than northern regions (e.g., [29])
Summary
An important event in many young people’s lives is moving out of the parental home. This event is often operationalized as the distance between parents and their children, i.e., parent-child proximity. Moving from one place to another has always naturally occurred, typified by when children leave their homes for work or to set up families of their own [27] This behavior has fallen under the umbrella topic of parent-child proximity (e.g., [15, 19, 23, 39]). Research about parent-child proximity has analyzed sociocultural aspects, such as through an examination of family bonds that are assumed to be tighter in southern regions of Europe than northern regions (e.g., [29]). Jokela et al [18] analyzed temperament traits (i.e., emotionality, sociability, and activity) in a large prospective study in Finland They found that more (vs less) sociable individuals had greater moving distances and were more likely to move to urban (vs rural) areas. Past research has found that moving decisions are influenced by demographic aspects (e.g., education), sociological aspects (e.g., family bonds), genetic
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