Leaving Home in Finland: A Comparison by Migration Origin and Neighbourhood Context

This paper examines how immigrant origin and neighbourhood environment intersect to shape the timing and pathways of leaving the parental home in Finland, a comparatively new migration destination. Using large‐scale longitudinal Finnish register data for the 1990–1995 birth cohorts (N = 369,629), we analyse the dynamics of leaving home among majority and immigrant‐ origin young adults. Our study demonstrates, for the first time, that the socio‐spatial environment shapes leaving‐home behaviour among different immigrant‐origin groups in Finland, providing a more nuanced understanding of this emplaced process. We employ discrete‐time competing‐risks event history models to analyse three transitions out of the parental home: independence, cohabitation and marriage. The results reveal that as the proportion of majority Finns in their neighbourhood increases, young
adults with an immigrant background increasingly resemble their majority peers in their leaving‐home behaviour, except for those from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the Balkans and former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, we find no evidence of a differential effect of the neighbourhood environment on men's and women's leaving‐home pathways