Independencia Residencial, Dedicación Laboral Y Fertilidad De Los Jóvenes Españoles. Un Análisis Por Comunidades Autónomas

Resumen:El camino hacia la adultez presenta múltiples transiciones: dejar la casa de los padres, incorporarse al mercado laboral, crear una familia y tener hijos. Todas estas transiciones vienen marcadas por las características del joven y los contextos, sociales y económicos. En el trabajo determinamos qué factores socio-demográficos y económicos influyen en las decisiones de los jóvenes españoles en su transición a la adultez. Y, dadas las diferencias regionales respecto al comportamiento de los mercados inmobiliario y laboral que hay en España, examinamos si existen diferencias en las tasas de emancipación, dedicación laboral y fertilidad entre las Comunidades Autónomas.Abstract:The way to adulthood has multiple transitions: leaving the parental home, joining the labor market, creating their own family and having children. Social, economic and cultural changes undergone by western countries in recent decades have made the transition to adult life more dynamic, complex and diversified. The extension in the years of schooling allows increasing the labor opportunities, but it represents relegating on the back burner the personal projects of family formation and the decision to have children, delaying it to a more favorable time. The instability and precariousness of labor situation of young adults and the rising cost of living, which has increased the resources needed to start a family, have prolonged the dependence on parents. The delay in the age of emancipation of young people entails important demographic consequences, the marriage is delayed and the birth rate decreases. The residential emancipation, the incorporation to the labor market, the creation of a new household and the fertility are marked by the different familiar, social, cultural and economic contexts of the moment. In this paper, we examine some aspects of the transition to adulthood of young Spaniards. In the economic boom period, an earlier family emancipation was promoted, although it slowed down due to increases in housing prices. With the economic crisis, which has affected our country hard, there has been a setback in the processes that mark the path towards adulthood. Integration in the labor market and residential emancipation are the first transitions to adult life. Analyzing the relationship between both transitions provides more understanding regarding the process of transition to adulthood, enabling implementing more appropriate policies for young people, both in the labor market and in the real estate market, which could improve labor conditions and access to housing. Another aspect of interest on the process to reaching adulthood is fertility, which has experienced a sharp decline throughout Europe. For those young people who have formed a new family nucleus independent of their parents, we analyze the decision to have children or not. In Spain, although the Autonomous Communities participate in the general model of the country, differences are appreciated among them. The social and cultural contexts, as well as the labor market, present differences between Autonomous Communities. The progressive delay in the age of residential emancipation of young people has occurred in all Autonomous Communities, but social changes that have not been reflected equally in all of them will possibly modify the process of youth emancipation. Therefore, a second objective of the study is to determine if the behavior of young people in the aforementioned decisions presents significant regional variations. The empirical information used in the present study was obtained from the Household Budget Survey 2015 (EPF-2015). This survey provides information about personal, demographic and economic characteristics of all members of the respondent Spanish households. Decisions on residential emancipation and labor dedication (working full-time) have been analyzed using a Bivariate Probit model that integrates these decisions and allows us to consider the interrelation between them. And the decision to have children or not, for those young people that became independent, has been estimated with the Binomial Probit model. The results of estimation of the residential independence and labor dedication model show that both are positively related. A young person who has a full-time job is more likely to become independent of his/her parents, an expected result, since working full-time gives the young person greater income that will allow him/her to achieve residential emancipation. The age and gender of the young person stand out among the most determining demographic characteristics, both in residential emancipation and in full-time occupation. As the young person grows older, we can observe an increase of the probability both to leave the parental home and to have a full-time job. Young women are more likely to become independent of parents than young men, but the probability of working full time is less for women. Economic factors, as expected, have an important effect. Individual income and family income have reverse effects on residential emancipation. Greater income of the young person promotes independence; while households with high resources discourage it. Both, the household income not due to young person and the unemployment rate have a negative effect on labor dedication. The probability of young person has a full-time job decreases if the household has a high income, without young person’s earnings of the young person, or if there is job insecurity in the environment in which he lives. In order to determine if there are variations in the behavior of young people faced with the suggested decisions according to the Autonomous Community in which they reside, we have obtained the corresponding predicted probabilities of residential emancipation and labor dedication. The results indicate that those communities with higher rates of youth unemployment and higher labor temporality, have lower values of the predicted rates of residential emancipation, and this happens despite having more favorable conditions in the housing market, such as Extremadura. The fragile economic independence of young people is hindering the possibilities of establishing themselves in an independent dwelling of the family home. The Autonomous Communities with more restrictive real estate markets (such as the Baleares or País Vasco), present better labor conditions for young people, which allows them to achieve residential independence (due to their greater purchasing power). The situation of the labor market, especially for the young people, presents differences between the Autonomous Communities, both in the unemployment rate and in the labor temporality and wages. This causes us to find small values of the predicted probability of finding full-time job in very restrictive labor markets for young people, as in Andalucía, Canarias and Extremadura. By contrast, in Autonomous Communities with more favorable labor conditions such as Navarra, País Vasco and Madrid, young people are more likely to have full-time job. In the fertility equation (having or not children), the personal characteristics of the young person have turned out to be very determining. The results indicate that women are more likely to have children and that this probability increases with age and decreases with the level of education, reflecting the opportunity costs associated with motherhood. Predictions of the fertility rate by Autonomous Community present lower values for those regions in which we have found more probability that young people find full-time job. The results obtained in the paper reinforce the assumption made in other studies (Baizán, 2016) where it is indicated that the social and labor market policies contribute to decrease fertility. Neutral labor policies with respect to gender and age will implicitly favor important asymmetries during the process of family formation. Many authors propose the adoption of measures that allow a greater conciliation between job and family and measures that give support and enable greater economic stability to young adults.