Clare Holdsworth

‘Don't you think you're missing out, living at home?’ Student experiences and residential transitions

Recent policy shifts in higher education impact on the diversity of student experiences, one such trend is an increase in the number of students staying in their parental home for the duration of their studies. This has implications for students’ experiences of university life, particularly non-academic aspects. Drawing on Bourdieus theory of practice and habitus, this papers explores how young people go about fitting in to ‘being a student’, and how predispositions to university life influence these practices. Residential status emerges as a key demarcating factor in how successfully students feel they adapt to being at university. Though related to class, this cannot be explained solely by the socio-economic background of students living at home, but rather reflects both practical problems faced by these students as well as difficulties in incorporating a student habitus while living at home.

‘Seize That Chance!’ Leaving Home and Transitions to Higher Education

This paper interrogates assumptions surrounding the practices of leaving home and going to higher education in England and Wales. As more students from non-traditional backgrounds are encouraged to go to university, this is leading to greater diversity in students’ experiences of university life, and one of the key aspects of this is that more students are choosing to stay at home for the duration of their studies. This paper explores how and why students make the decision to stay at home. While recognising the financial advantages of living at home we argue that the decision cannot be reduced to economic expediency, but reflects young peoples access to legitimate cultural capital and family and peer endorsement of leaving home as an expected process and outcome of going to university.

Student volunteering in English higher education

Volunteering in English higher education has come under political scrutiny recently, with strong cross‐party support for schemes to promote undergraduate volunteering in particular. Recent targeted initiatives and proposals have sought to strengthen both the role of volunteering in higher education and synergies between higher education and voluntary sectors. There is, therefore, an emerging consensus among both politicians and academics that promoting student volunteering is beneficial for students, higher education institutions and the communities in which they volunteer. This article reviews the rationale of recent initiatives to promote volunteering and the empirical evidence of the impacts that volunteering has on students, higher education institutions and communities. It argues that the benefits of student volunteering are assumed rather than proven, and, in the light of current political conviction of the need to promote volunteering, it is essential that we consider, critically, the motivations behind this agenda.

Family and intimate mobilities

Introduction Theorising Mobilities and Family Practices Intimate Mobilities: Moving out, Moving in and Moving on Families on the Move I: Moving House and Commuting Families on the Move II: Childrens, Nomadic and Non-Linear Mobilities Intimate Spaces Conclusion

Ethnic differences in women's employment

This paper uses the 1 per cent household file from the Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs) for the 1991 Census and the ONS Longitudinal Study (LS) to explore variations in patterns of employment and occupational attainment among women from different ethnic groups. The analysis of the SARs focuses on the impact of lifecycle events on womens employment status and economic activity. The presence of a partner is identified as having the greatest impact on Pakinstani and Bangladeshi womens employment, while the presence of a pre-school child is most significant for White womens economic activity. White women also have a higher rate of part-time worlding than all other ethnic groups. These patterns are for malised in two models, one for economic activity and a second for full-time/part-time work. The LS is used to investigate the impact of these employment patterns on womens occupational attainment over a ten-year period. The analysis demonstrates that, while minority ethnic women in nonmanual occupations have similar longitudinal occupational profiles to White women, those in manual occupations fare worse than their White counterparts, despite the fact that a larger propotion of minority ethnic women are in fill-time employment.

First housing moves in Spain. An analysis of leaving home and first housing acquisition

This paper examines young peoples firsthousing acquisition in Spain. The majority ofyoung Spanish people leave home to buy aproperty and to live with a partner and/orchild. We examine the extent to which thistransition dominates first housing moves duringthe 1980s and consider the ways in which widerfamily networks facilitate leaving home to buya property. We then examine characteristicsassociated with deviation from this normativeroute. We find alternative transitions,particularly moving into rented accommodation,are more common among young people from moreadvantaged backgrounds, and those living innorthern Spain.

Family Support During the Transition Out of the Parental Home in Britain, Spain and Norway:

This article explores how family support is negotiated for young people either living at home or in the process of leaving home in three European countries: Britain, Spain and Norway. Using qualitative data collected from parents and adult children, I examine what kinds of support are provided, how different strategies of giving and receiving support are adopted, and how young people and parents view the role of the state. Family support emerges as a key factor in facilitating leaving home transitions in all three countries, though the strategies for giving support vary. In particular, greater emphasis is placed on young people learning about responsibility in Britain and Norway, while Spanish families identify more closely with maintaining young people’s material well-being.

Is alcohol consumption in older adults associated with poor self-rated health? Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

BackgroundIncreases in alcohol related mortality and morbidity have been reported among older people in England over the last decade. There is, however, evidence that drinking is protective for some health conditions. The validity of this evidence has been questioned due to residual confounding and selection bias. The aim of this study is to clarify which drinking profiles and other demographic characteristics are associated with poor self-rated health among a community-based sample of older adults in England. The study also examines whether drinking designated as being “increasing-risk” or “higher-risk” is associated with poorer self-rated health.MethodThis study used data from Wave 0, Wave 1 and Wave 5 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing [ELSA]. Logistic regression analysis, was used to examine the association between drinking profiles (based on quantity and frequency of drinking) and self-rated health, adjusting for gender, age, wealth, social class, education, household composition, smoking and body mass index [BMI].ResultsTwenty percent of the sample reported drinking above the recommended level at wave 0. Rates of poor self-rated health were highest among those who had stopped drinking, followed by those who never drank. The rates of poor self-rated health among non-drinkers were significantly higher than the rates of poor self-rated health for any of the groups who reported alcohol consumption. In the adjusted logistic regression models there were no drinking profiles associated with significantly higher rates of poor self-rated health relative to occasional drinkers.ConclusionsAmong those who drank alcohol, there was no evidence that any pattern of current alcohol consumption was associated with poor self-rated health, even after adjustment for a wide range of variables. The results associated with the stopped drinking profile indicate improvement in self-rated health can be associated with changes in drinking behaviour. Although several limitations of the study are noted, policy makers may wish to consider how these findings should be translated into drinking guidelines for older adults.

‘WHEN ARE THE CHILDREN GOING TO LEAVE HOME!’: FAMILY CULTURE AND DELAYED TRANSITIONS IN SPAIN

ABSTRACT This paper distinguishes the characteristics of recent trends towards older ages of leaving home in Spain. Based on analysis of in-depth interviews with young people and parents from Bilbao in the Basque Country, I explore how familism and family solidarity play a key role in the current trend towards delayed family formation, focusing on the postponement of leaving home. This analysis illustrates the various leaving home strategies that young Basque people adopt, and how these are negotiated with parents and other family members. The analysis of the interview data also captures the ways in which young people negotiate with and recreate family culture, both while living in and leaving the parental home. The different strategies adopted by young people are classified by a typology based on the extent to which young people recognise and conform to a prescribed cultural model of behaviour, namely leaving home to get married and (preferably) buy a property.

Leaving home in Spain: When, where and why?

Holdsworth C., Voas D. and Tranmer M. (2002) Leaving home in Spain: when, where and why?, Reg. Studies 36, 989–1004. Spanish transitions out of the parental home are characterized by older ages of leaving and a close association between leaving home and partnership formation, compared to countries in northern Europe. Yet throughout Spain we find important regional variation in the intensity and timing of leaving home. This paper provides new insights into the causes of this regional diversity, focusing on both economic and cultural dimensions. The analyses are based on multilevel models that control for individual and provincial characteristics. Economic factors play a vital role at the individual level, yet are less important at the provincial level. Regional variation is more closely associated with the impact of both the timing of partnership formation and the relationship between leaving home and getting married. These distinctive regional patterns of leaving home and partnership formation are discussed with reference to historical traditions of family and household formation.