Home leaving trajectories in Canada: Exploring cultural and gendered dimensions

In this exploratory study, we profile variations in home leaving, home returning, and home staying behaviour among four ethnocultural groups in Canada-British, Chinese, Indian, and South European. Data collected in a 1999-2000 survey of 1,907 young adults (ages 19-35) residing in the Vancouver area are used. Our principal foci are ethnocultural and gendered aspects of home leaving trajectories, specifically: ages at home leaving and returning, and reasons for home leaving, home returning and home staying. Special attention is paid to returners/boomerangers, given an increasing overall trend in home returning in Canada. We find that: (a) both ethnocultural origin and gender are important determinants of home leaving trajectory, (b) there is a distinct (but far from tidy) difference between European-origin and Asian-origin groups in home leaving trajectory, (c) British-Canadians leave home at the youngest ages and Indo