Chapter 8 Intergenerational support for autonomous living in a post-socialist housing market

This paper explores housing trajectories of young adults and practices
of intergenerational support in Romania drawing on narratives
of a group of people aged 25–39 living (quasi-) autonomously in
Bucharest, and those of kin that support them. It describes three
housing arrangements in which family (parental) resources and
property play an important role, and argues that in this context of high
interdependence, unequal relationships develop between parents
and adult children marked by professed entitlement on the part of
children and controlling generosity on the part of parents. It shows
how interdependent practices of homemaking and material support
combine to shape housing trajectories and defi ne the boundaries of
ownership over homes that are shared, gifted or given in use within
kin networks, sheltering young adults from the vagaries of the market.