In recent years the economic crisis has wiped out many jobs, and not a few young people have returned to their parental home after losing their jobs. A new study published in the journalJournal of Political Economyhas discussed the long-term benefits of this decision.
According to researchers, from the University of Pennsylvania, young people who return to the family home after losing their jobsthey do not have as much economic pressure as those who decide to stay at home and have to face the payment of rentand daily expenses. This allows them to look for jobs with better long-term prospects, harder to find, and generally starting out with little money and under precarious conditions. However, young people who do not return to their parents’ homes need a quick income and end up taking jobs with few long-term prospects such as those in the service sector.
To test this hypothesis, the scientists built a model in which two types of jobs were offered: ‘safe jobs’, easier to find but with little prospect of long-term pay rise and career development; and ‘risky jobs’, more difficult to find but with better prospects for the future. The researchers evaluated the choices of23-year-olds in two different settings: in the first, the possibility of living with the parents again was offered, and in the second, this option was eliminated.
The results revealed that, when there was no possibility of returning to the family home, the probability of looking for a ‘risky job’ was reduced by one15 percent. “Intuitively, it makes sense for people to go home after job loss,” explains Greg Kaplan, one of the authors. “We have seen many cases during the last recession, but until now there was no data on their possible effects. This study shows that the option to return home is potentially very important.”
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