The role of parents in their adult children’s housing and residential locations

Are adult children more likely to become homeowners for the first time if their parents are homeowners? And, if so, did the influence of parental homeownership on that of the adult child change over time? Do adult children of parents with high-value housing have better chances to have higher housing values themselves? Which adult children and parents are likely to live together, or to move in with or close to each other? Do support needs play a role when children and parents move closer to each other? This study explores the housing quality and residential locations of adult children with a focus on the role of their parents. The concepts of intergenerational transmission of housing quality and that of family solidarity are used to explain how parents might influence their children’s housing and residential locations. Large-scale longitudinal data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) and the Social Statistical dataBase (SSB) were used to address the issues at hand.