Many young adults — members of Generation Z, as well as young millennials — are choosing to live with their parents after they turn 18, a trend that is surprising quite a few Americans.
Is it inflation, lack of housing or personal preference that’s fueling the phenomenon?
Experts believe the reason why is more complex — and might surprise you.
How many young adults live at home?
According to Axios, new census data shows that 87% more adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are living at home with their parents compared to 20 years ago.
According to a Bloomberg analysis, nearly half of young adults live with their parents, a rate that hasn’t been seen since the 1940s; that’s about 23 million adults between the ages of 18 to 29.
In 2020, Pew Research Center found that 52% of young adults (between the ages of 18 and 29) lived at home with their parents, a rate that hadn’t been seen since the Great Depression.
Why do young adults live with their parents?
Bloomberg found that there were three top reasons why young adults were choosing to live at home with their parents:
- To save money.
- To take care of older family members.
- Because they can’t afford to live outside of the home anymore.
According to Axios, rent is very expensive and not improving, so staying home helps young people save money for a future down payment or future rent.
Bloomberg interviewed several young adults for its analysis. One shared that employment opportunities were becoming scarce by the time she became a senior in college.
Multigenerational households are becoming more common across America
According to Pew Research Center, young adults are more likely to be living in a multigenerational household compared to 50 years ago. The center found in 2021 that 68% of adults between the ages of 25 and 34 lived at home with a parent.
What may surprise some is that many of the young adults choosing to live at home come from backgrounds where living with multiple generations of family was not a stigma.
Business Insider had an interview with Sarah Ahn, a young adult who currently lives with her parents, who shared her opinion that moving out in your 20s is an odd norm that is highly upheld in American culture compared to other countries, with many young adults worrying about the negative stigma they could face while living at home with their parents.
But that’s changing. Along with these numbers from Bloomberg, many young adults are now saying that there shouldn’t be any judgement to anyone who chooses to live with their parents, per CBS.