Home leaving trajectories in Canada: exploring cultural and gendered dimensions

English In this exploratory study, we profile variations in home leaving, homereturning,and home staying behaviour among four ethnocultural groups in Canada -British, Chinese, Indian, and South European. Data collected in a 1999-2000survey of 1,907 young adults (ages 19-35) residing in the Vancouver area areused. Our principal foci are ethnocultural and gendered aspects of home leavingtrajectories, specifically: ages at home leaving and returning, and reasons forhome leaving, home returning and home staying. Special attention is paid toreturners/boomerangers, given an increasing overall trend in home returning inCanada. We find that: (a) both ethnocultural origin and gender are importantdeterminants of home leaving trajectory, (b) there is a distinct (but far from tidy)difference between European-origin and Asian-origin groups in home leavingtrajectory, (c) British-Canadians leave home at the youngest ages and Indo-Canadians at the oldest ages, (d) the main reason for home leaving isindependence for British-Canadians; schooling for Chinese-Canadians, andmarriage for Indo-Canadians, (e) among all four groups, home returners leavehome initially at younger ages and, with the exception of Indo-Canadian youngmen, who typically leave home for school, and (f) gender differences in homeleaving trajectory are larger among the Chinese and Indo-Canadians than amongpersons of European origins. Overall, we conclude that the theorized trend of theindividualized family life course holds for only some ethnocultural groups inCanada. We conclude with suggestions for future research directions on thetopic of ethnicity and the home leaving life course transitions. French Dans cette étude préliminaire, nous donnons le profil de plusieurscomportements relatifs au fait de quitter la maison, d’y retourner et d’y rester dequatre groupes ethnoculturels au Canada, notamment les Britanniques, lesChinois, les Indiens et les ressortissants du sud de l’Europe. On s’est servi dedonnées recueillies lors d’un sondage effectué en 1999-2000 auprès de 1907jeunes adultes (agés de 19 à 35 ans) vivant dans la région de Vancouver. Nousétions particulièrement intéressés par les aspects ethnoculturels et ceux quitiennent compte du r le des hommes et des femmes dans les trajectoires qui lesmènent à quitter la maison, plus précisément à quel age ils la quittent et yreviennent, quelles sont les raisons qui les poussent à partir, à y revenir et à yrester. Une attention toute spéciale est accordée aux enfants boomerang (ceuxqui reviennent après avoir quitté la maison) vu que cette tendance se manifest