Abstract
AbstractLabor market conditions in Greece have severely deteriorated during the crisis, affecting youths the most. Using the Greek crisis as a case-study, this paper examines the role of the family as a social safety net for its young members. Specifically, we test the relationship between youth labor outcomes and parental co-residence, whether this relationship has become stronger during the crisis, and the degree to which the relationship is causal. Our results confirm that the parental home is a refuge both for jobless youth and for those in poorly paid, insecure jobs, and this role has intensified during the crisis. We find no reverse causality between co-residence and employment status for young men, and significant reverse causality for women. This finding implies that all youths live in the parental home when they are in need themselves, but it is young women not men who live with parents when parents are in need or for cultural reasons.
Highlights
The Great Recession has drawn much attention on the safety nets available to vulnerable population groups, especially young people
We find no reverse causality between co-residence and employment outcomes, which implies that while youth labor market conditions influence young men’s living arrangements, parents’ finances or culture do not
Youth employment and coresidence seem to move in opposite directions but the negative association becomes striking during the crisis. It is this basic correlation between the two series that motivates our research: it suggests that the decrease in job opportunities in Greece have increasingly deprived young adults of living on their own
Summary
The Great Recession has drawn much attention on the safety nets available to vulnerable population groups, especially young people. Considerable concern has emerged about whether struggling youths could turn to their families for housing and on whether this would delay their transition to adulthood. Among the OECD countries, for example, the share of 15–29 years old living with their parents increased the most in France by an impressive 12.5 percentage points, while other countries like Slovenia and the UK recorded a decline [OECD (2016)]. These mixed experiences stem from the complex and often counteracting determinants of youth living arrangements, which include various economic factors and non-economic factors like culture.
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