The Decision of Leaving Home in France and Italy: A Multilevel Hazard Model

Stefano Mazzuco, Università di Padova

In this paper home-leaving decisions are modelled in a multilevel setting that takes into account simultaneously individual, household and regional characteristics. The first five waves (from 1994 to 1998) of European Community Household Panel (ECHP) are used for a comparative analysis of France and Italy. Young Italians are known as late-leavers whereas French are leaving home much earlier. A drawback of the ECHP is the high attrition rate. Our specification treats attrition as a factor of selection, which facilitates estimation of the correlation between the attrition and the home-leaving processes. Results indicate that young Italians wait for a high economic stability before leaving home whereas young French leave even without a real economic independency. The effect of household income change according the age and the potential earnings of the young adult. Finally, living in a region with a bad economic situation increases the hazard of leaving.