Emancipación residencial de los jóvenes en un contexto de crisis económica

Abstract

Leaving one’s parental home is a significant moment in life. It is usually noted as one of the most important milestones in the passage to adulthood. Furthermore, these first changes of residence are fundamental in the study of residential mobility and the configuration of urban spaces. For decades, it has been observed that life trajectories among young people in developed countries are less linear, less standardized and contain more re- entries to parental homes than ever before. Until recently, these transitions were more traditional in the Spanish context compared to those of other European countries. This is linked to a large extent to an older average age in the formation of new couples and to access to homeownership in Spain in comparison to the central and north European context. The recent economic crisis, exacerbated in our country by the burst of the housing bubble, suddenly altered the context in which young people leave their parental homes. As a result, it is a seminal time to analyze how young Spaniards leave their parents’ houses, how their mobility trajectories are perpetuated or altered, and how they experience and make sense of these phenomena. This research attempts to shed light on the ways in which recent changes in the economic context have affected discourses on residential independence among young people. Therefore, the analysis is focused on transformations within this set of discourses and the associated imaginaries.