Refilled Nest: The grown kids are moving back home. It may not be the economy
Remember that slogan from the 1990s?
Well here in the 2016s, maybe it isn't--at least not when it comes to our grown kids moving back home after college.
A May 24 story on the Pew Foundation's website trumpeted this headline: For the First Time in Modern Era, Living With Parents Edges Out Other Living Arrangements for 18- to 34-Year-Olds.
The broad survey finding: In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household. Census data backs up Pew findings. In 1960, less than one in six 25-year-olds still lived with mom and dad; in 2014, nearly one in three did.
What holds true for the U.S. is also a global phenomenon. Across much of the developed world, young adults are living at their parents’ homes for longer periods--either they never left or they're back after being on their own in college or the working world.
What's going on here? Researchers say it isn't the difficulty in landing a career job or the burden of college debt (though those have some influence). Rather, it's a demographic and cultural shift. Kids are continuing to marry later, with this change. Or as Pew so delicately put it, there has been a "dramatic drop in the share of young Americans who are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35."
The Pew headline needs close reading. It's not that a greater percentage of grown kids are living with mom and dad than ever before. That peak--35 percent--was hit in 1940. (Today it's 32 percent.) What's at an all-time high is the relative share of grown kids adopting non-traditional ways of living in early adulthood.
Those living arrangement differ significantly by gender. Since 2009, the dominant living arrangement for young men has been living at home with mom and/or dad. Young women are edging close to that point but are still more likely to be living with a spouse or romantic partner (35%) than they are to be living with their parent(s) (29%).
Meanwhile, 14% of young adults are heading up a household in which they live alone, are a single parent or live with one or more roommates, and 22% live in the home of another family member (such as a grandparent, in-law or sibling), a non-relative, or in group quarters (college dormitories fall into this category).
Here are some more statistical breakdowns from Pew:
• More young women (16%) than young men (13%) are heading up a household without a spouse or partner. This is mainly because women are more likely than men to be single parents living with their children.
• Young men (25%) are more likely than young women (19%) to be living in the home of another family member, a non-relative or in some type of group quarters. (Employed young men are much less likely to live at home than young men without a job, and employment among young men has fallen significantly in recent decades as has young men's earnings.)
• In addition to the rising median age of first marriages (a decades-long trend), as many as one-in-four of today’s young adults may be eschewing marriage altogether. The overall share of young adults either married or living with an unmarried partner has substantially fallen since 1990.
• Young adults in states in the South Atlantic, West South Central and Pacific areas of the U.S. have recently experienced the highest rates on record of living with parent(s).
If you like charts and stats, here are some from Pew that spell out their findings on our millennials and their living arrangements.
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Refilled Nest: The grown kids are moving back home. It may not be the economy
Remember that slogan from the 1990s?
Well here in the 2016s, maybe it isn't--at least not when it comes to our grown kids moving back home after college.
A May 24 story on the Pew Foundation's website trumpeted this headline: For the First Time in Modern Era, Living With Parents Edges Out Other Living Arrangements for 18- to 34-Year-Olds.
The broad survey finding: In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household. Census data backs up Pew findings. In 1960, less than one in six 25-year-olds still lived with mom and dad; in 2014, nearly one in three did.
What holds true for the U.S. is also a global phenomenon. Across much of the developed world, young adults are living at their parents’ homes for longer periods--either they never left or they're back after being on their own in college or the working world.
What's going on here? Researchers say it isn't the difficulty in landing a career job or the burden of college debt (though those have some influence). Rather, it's a demographic and cultural shift. Kids are continuing to marry later, with this change. Or as Pew so delicately put it, there has been a "dramatic drop in the share of young Americans who are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35."
The Pew headline needs close reading. It's not that a greater percentage of grown kids are living with mom and dad than ever before. That peak--35 percent--was hit in 1940. (Today it's 32 percent.) What's at an all-time high is the relative share of grown kids adopting non-traditional ways of living in early adulthood.
Those living arrangement differ significantly by gender. Since 2009, the dominant living arrangement for young men has been living at home with mom and/or dad. Young women are edging close to that point but are still more likely to be living with a spouse or romantic partner (35%) than they are to be living with their parent(s) (29%).
Meanwhile, 14% of young adults are heading up a household in which they live alone, are a single parent or live with one or more roommates, and 22% live in the home of another family member (such as a grandparent, in-law or sibling), a non-relative, or in group quarters (college dormitories fall into this category).
Here are some more statistical breakdowns from Pew:
• More young women (16%) than young men (13%) are heading up a household without a spouse or partner. This is mainly because women are more likely than men to be single parents living with their children.
• Young men (25%) are more likely than young women (19%) to be living in the home of another family member, a non-relative or in some type of group quarters. (Employed young men are much less likely to live at home than young men without a job, and employment among young men has fallen significantly in recent decades as has young men's earnings.)
• In addition to the rising median age of first marriages (a decades-long trend), as many as one-in-four of today’s young adults may be eschewing marriage altogether. The overall share of young adults either married or living with an unmarried partner has substantially fallen since 1990.
• Young adults in states in the South Atlantic, West South Central and Pacific areas of the U.S. have recently experienced the highest rates on record of living with parent(s).
If you like charts and stats, here are some from Pew that spell out their findings on our millennials and their living arrangements.
