Report: More Millennials Living With Parents Than Any Other Living Arrangement

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center recently published the starkest evidence yet of the issues facing millennials versus those that faced boomers during the same periods of their lives.

Millennials, who are now between 18 and 34 according to the study, are more likely to live at home than any other type of living arrangement due to changing social attitudes and the economy.

The analysis uses data from 2014, which shows more millennials living at home with parents (32.1 percent) than with a spouse or roommate (31.6 percent), alone (14 percent), or in another arrangement (22 percent). It’s the first time those living at home have outnumbered those in any other living arrangement in over 130 years, and is a stark contrast to boomers who were only 20-percent likely to live at home with their parents versus 62-percent likely to live with a spouse in 1960.

Pew states the main reason for the shift is a changing attitude toward marriage amongst those in the 18-34 age group, but other factors affect the shift as well.

From Pew:

In addition, trends in both employment status and wages have likely contributed to the growing share of young adults who are living in the home of their parent(s), and this is especially true of young men. 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. The share of young men with jobs peaked around 1960 at 84%. In 2014, only 71% of 18- to 34-year-old men were employed. Similarly with earnings, young men’s wages (after adjusting for inflation) have been on a downward trajectory since 1970 and fell significantly from 2000 to 2010. As wages have fallen, the share of young men living in the home of their parent(s) has risen.

Economic factors seem to explain less of why young adult women are increasingly likely to live at home. Generally, young women have had growing success in the paid labor market since 1960 and hence might increasingly be expected to be able to afford to live independently of their parents. For women, delayed marriage—which is related, in part, to labor market outcomes for men—may explain more of the increase in their living in the family home.

The Great Recession (and modest recovery) has also been associated with an increase in young adults living at home. Initially in the wake of the recession, college enrollments expanded, boosting the ranks of young adults living at home. And given the weak job opportunities facing young adults, living at home was part of the private safety net helping young adults to weather the economic storm.

The Pew study doesn’t talk about car sales at all, but one can draw some similarities between home and car ownership for the defined group.

In short, millennials — and especially males — have it worse off than their parents in the job market, which contributes to their likeliness of staying at home or boomeranging back to live with parents.

[Photo credit: Optician Training]