This chapter will analyse the decision-making mechanisms and strategies of individuals who must act in conditions of objective and/or subjective job insecurity. It will focus on young people in Europe in conditions of low attachment to the labour market and their decision-making mechanisms with respect to the transition to autonomous living. The results will be contextualized at the macro level taking into consideration the role of the welfare state regimes offering a different set of constraints and opportunities in the various countries considered.

In particular, we will focus on the transition of ‘leaving the parental home’, because this is considered an important point in the process of becoming adult in the traditional theory of ‘life courses’. Literature explains that there are different patterns of transition in different welfare state systems and that job insecurity is one of the determinants of postponement of this transition. Data show that the year of leaving the parental home is very different across Europe.

Then we will focus on how objective and subjective job insecurity affect housing autonomy of youth in different welfare state regimes. In particular, we will look at: Does their situation correlate to their decision about leaving home? How does this vary across welfare state system and countries? Is objective job insecurity relevant? Is subjective job insecurity relevant? And how are they linked to other factors (such as culture, housing affordability, access to credit and so on). How do young people make their decisions (what are their ‘decision mechanisms’)?

The rationale behind the choice of the countries is driven by the mixedmethod design of the chapter. It integrates quantitative data aimed at illustrating statistical regularities around the phenomenon of leaving the parental home and qualitative data aimed at investigating the meaning and mechanisms behind such transition. Therefore, the first section provides an overview of the association between individuals’ labour market situation and transition out of the parental home in seven European countries, as it emerges from quantitative data. The focus is on the condition of objective job insecurity in particular (that is, the lack of a permanent job as defined in Chapter 1).