Resources, Living Arrangements, and Union Formation in the United States, the Netherlands, and West Germany

Clara H. Mulder, University of Amsterdam

This paper addresses the impact of differences between previous living arrangements (living in the parental home versus living away) on first union formation. Unlike in most previous research, we do not just include the previous living arrangement in the analyses as a single variable, but we investigate differences between the living arrangements in the impact of individual and parental resources. Analyses are performed for three countries with different welfare regimes: the United States, the Netherlands and West Germany. Most of our findings are in line with the general hypothesis that individual and parental resources matter less to union formation for those living away from the parents than for those still living in the parental home. Furthermore, the results suggest that resources matter less in Conservative Continental European welfare regimes than in the United States, a typical example of a Liberal Market welfare regime.