Home-leaving Decision of Daughters and Sons

In spite of relevant differences between countries, a common international pattern emerges: daughters leave parental homes earlier than sons. Drawing upon the European Community Household Panel, we explore the impacts of various factors that affect daughters' and sons' home-leaving decisions. Results show that the decisions of daughters appear to be more responsive to environmental factors than sons'. This implies that policies aiming to speed up the transition to adulthood might have important economic impact on the existing gender differences in family formation and household responsibilities and income inequality across young men and women.