Adolescent Home-Leaving and the Transition to Adulthood: A Psychosocial and Behavioural Study in the Slums of Nairobi

Home-leaving is considered an important marker of the transition to adulthood and is usually framed as an individual decision. We move beyond this limited assumption to examine a broader conceptualization that might better illuminate home-leaving among youth in impoverished circumstances. We adopt the Problem Behavior Theory-framework to investigate the association of home-leaving with behavioral and psychosocial variables and with other transitions. We use data on adolescents aged 14-22 years from a three-wave study conducted between 2007 and 2010. We used variable- and person-centered cross-sectional analyses, as well as predictive analysis of home-leaving by subsequent waves. Parental controls protection predicted home-leaving by subsequent waves. Overall, protective factors moderated the association of problem behavior involvement with leaving home in Nairobi's slums. (Contains 2 figures and 7 tables.)