Housing transitions of Taiwanese young adults: intersections of the parental home and housing pathways

In the global context, studies have found that young adults are facing increasing difficulties in accessing homeownership and delaying home-leaving. While the Western literature on housing circumstances among younger generations indicates the importance of family support, in an East Asian context, the family is particularly intertwined with housing arrangements given the cultural heritage of filial piety. To elucidate the dynamics of housing transitions, this paper adopted a holistic approach and used sequence analysis to establish distinct housing pathways in a less studied social context, Taiwan. Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics, apart from providing empirical evidence on the emergence of the private rented path and a decline in homeownership associated with housing inequality, this paper explored the diverse housing pathways associated with the principal platform of family support, i.e. the parental home, and found that it may function as both a familisation instrument for young adults seeking independence and negotiating leverage sustaining the filial reciprocity.