The recession didn’t just hurt our wallets, it also changed the sleeping arrangements.
Between 2007 and 2010, the number of adult Americans living in a household with family members or others jumped more than 11 percent, according to Census Bureau data cited by the Washington Post. Young adults accounted for more than half of the people who moved in with family or friends; the number of adult children that moved back home increased by more than 1 million between 2007 and 2010.
The Census data confirms what many already knew: that the combination of mountains of debt and a weak job market means many young adults have little choice but to return to mom and dad. Only 54 percent of adults aged 18 to 24 have jobs, according to a report from the Pew Research Center released in February. That’s the lowest share since Pew started keeping track in 1948.
The weak economy has altogether helped pushed 30 percent of adults between the ages of 25 and 34 back home in recent years, according to a separate Pew report released in March.
They don’t seem to be too upset. Close to eighty percent of those who moved back in with their parents said they are “satisfied with their living arrangements,” the Pew study found.
The stigmatized phenomenon has now become “really close to something of a majority experience,” according to Katherine Newman, author of “The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents and the Private Toll of Global Competition.”
With more adult children moving back in with their parents, the dynamics of homeownership may be dramatically altered for the near future. Moving home is just one of the many ways that young people are increasingly delaying buying a house, according to NPR.