Living with parents or attaining residential independence? A comparative study of young adults’ living arrangements in China and South Korea

Abstract

This study examines the living arrangements of never-married urban young adults in China and South Korea from 2003 to 2018. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey and the Korean General Social Survey, we investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status and young adults’ living arrangements. Our findings show that a majority of Korean young adults lived with their parents during the observed time period, while Chinese young adults experienced large shifts in their living arrangements. Findings from weighted logistic models demonstrate that employed or high-income young adults were more likely to leave the parental home than those who were not working, suggesting the important role of economic security in independent living. Highly educated young adults in China tended to have residential independence, while education was not significantly associated with Korean young adults’ living arrangements. Korean young adults with highly educated fathers were more likely to stay with parents. The interconnection between family socioeconomic characteristics at the micro level and variations in opportunity structures at the macro level results in country-specific patterns of living arrangements.

Acknowledgements

A version of this paper was presented at the 2021 International Chinese Sociological Association (ICSA) Annual Conference and the 2022 Annual Meeting of Life Course Transition in East Asia. The authors thank the conference participants, anonymous reviewers, and Dr. Lei Lei for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Additional information

Funding

Bin Lian’s work was supported by a research grant from the Shanghai Pujiang Program (no. 21PJC030).

Notes on contributors

Soo-Yeon Yoon

Soo-Yeon Yoon is an assistant professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. Her primary research interests lie in the areas of family, gender equality, and population changes. Her research on family behaviors in East Asia, focusing on South Korea, has appeared in several disciplinary journals. Her current work centers around the transition to young adulthood, inequality, and its policy implications.

Bin Lian

Bin Lian is an assistant professor at the Institute of Social Work and Social Policy at East China University of Science and Technology, where she focuses on research in the areas of social demography, social policy, and cross-country comparison. She earned a PhD in Sociology and an MS in Statistics and has previously worked as a consultant for UNICEF and the United Nations.