General Overview

           
There have not been very many studies done over how leaving the home and at what age this change takes place have affected a child’s later life.  However, the studies that do look into this phenomenon have led to varied results, as many studies on leaving home see it as an autonomous decision by the young adult in question (1).  Some anthropologists, however, argue that the age at which a child leaves the home is based primarily on social norms and specific determinants throughout the world.  These determinants mainly come in three categories: involvement in parallel events, such as going to school, getting a job, and marriage, opportunities and restrains such as the housing market that may affect the decision, and the impact of cultural attitudes and value orientations (1).  This website will be primarily focused on the first and third determinants, as they are the easiest to track over a large range of years.

It may be impossible to find one specific age at which it is conducive for children to leave the home on a global scale.  This is primarily due to the fact that cultures vary throughout the world, and so have different social norms.  It is also possible that within the cultures themselves, the age of the child is not so important as what made up their decision to leave (2).  Because these determinants take place at different times for many individuals based on personality, class, and other factors, it is extremely difficult and perhaps even impossible to come up with one specific age to leave the home, even within one society.  This website will try to discover if this is true or not.

In order to look into the ages children leave home in different cultures throughout the world, it was important to choose four countries representing different geographical areas and beliefs.  To do this I picked countries from four different continents.  For North America, I chose the United States.  This choice was mainly due to the fact I wanted to explore this question in my own country and culture in particular.  I was also able to find the most resources for the United States.  For South America, I chose Brazil.  This was because I knew there was different cultural variance within Brazil, as it is such a large country with different resources and environments.  There is also a Brazilian exchange student living with my family in Muskegon, MI this year, and I wanted to look into her culture.  For Asia, I chose South Korea.  This choice was made mainly because in high school, I went to a boarding school with many people from South Korea.  This gave me some experience with and interest in South Korean culture, and led me to choose the country to learn more about what some of my friends experienced.  For Africa, I chose South Africa.  I originally wanted to focus on Kenya, but was able to find more information pertaining to my question on South Africa.  I also knew South Africa has a very varied culture, which would allow me to explore different facets of their society.  I decided not to choose any countries from Europe, Australia, or Antarctica, so as not to overload the site with too much information.  

In choosing four different countries with radically different cultures, I hope to discover how much one's origins affect his later life and age at which he chooses to leave home.  I also hope to gain an overview of how different the world really is, because if I can find extreme variance between the United States, Brazil, South Korea, and South America, I can only imagine what happens when more countries are introduced to the question.  It is important to me to gain an understanding both of how culture affects this change, and how different these cultures can truly be.  I hope that the United States, Brazil, South Korea, and South Africa can give me an accurate representation of the variance between cultures.

Because parallel decisions are often extremely important to the decision to leave home, two of these, education and marriage, will be focused on.  In order to determine the relationship between initiation ceremonies and leaving the home, this will be the third focus of the website.  Do all initiation ceremonies correspond to adulthood, and does adulthood correspond to leaving the home?

Resources

1.)  Billari, Francesco C., and Aart C. Liefbroer. "Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Impact of Age Norms on Leaving Home." Population Association of America, Feb. 2007. JSTOR. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4137227 

2.)  White, Lynn, and Naomi Lacy. "The Effects of Age at Home Leaving and Pathways from Home on Educational Attainmen." . National Council on Family Relations, Nov. 1997. JSTOR. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/353797>.