Newswire: 5/30/20
- Call it the “reverse boomerang” effect: A growing number of older adults are moving in with their adult kids, often for financial reasons. This phenomenon is only going to continue rising as more Boomers reach the end of their working lives without retirement savings. (The New York Times)
- NH: The vast majority of intergenerational households consist of Millennials living with their parents. But the number of parents moving in with their adult children has also risen since the 90s. Out of all intergenerational households, 14% are parents living in their adult children’s homes. This share was only 7% in 1995. Yes the share is small, but it is rising.
- The NYT attributes this to the shrinking wealth of today’s elderly. If you read my piece last week, you know that late-wave Boomers have measly retirement savings. 55% of 55-64-year olds have less than $10K put away for retirement. Moving in with their children may be the only way they can pay the bills. See “Boomers Are Way Behind on Retirement Savings.”
- While money is most certainly a driver, the NYT misses another reason more parents are living with their children… the demise of the nuclear family. Rising rates of separation and divorce over the last several decades have created a lot more single seniors living alone--and a lot more young single parents (typically young women) raising children alone. Both single seniors and young single parents can both help each other by sharing the same home. In this case, moving into the adult child's home wasn’t primarily about the money but about helping to repair the broken family unit. See “The Grandparent Generation.”
- Of course none of this could be possible without the high level of personal comfort between Millennials and Boomers. Back in the 80s, few Boomers--no matter how desperate their situation--were willing to move in with their GI parents. But today, many Boomers and Millennials not only get along but enjoy each other's company. Today, parents and grown children moving in together is losing their stigma. Indeed, it is on its way to becoming a new norm.
DID YOU KNOW?
Everybody’s Got to Learn Inside. With schools closed during the pandemic, kids and teens have gone from learning in classrooms to learning on Zoom. And according to The Wall Street Journal, adults are joining them there. Demand for online adult education has gone through the roof in recent weeks, with cooped-up learners flocking to websites like Skillshare, Coursera, and Udemy. The number of daily viewers and minutes spent on Skillshare, which offers paid video lessons, have more than tripled compared to last year. Enrollment for Coursera’s classes are up 600%, while enrollment on Udemy has quadrupled. The surge in new visitors has been about evenly split between those learning for professional reasons and for fun. The subject that has seen the biggest rise in enrollment on Udemy is technical drawing (up 900%), followed by a mix of subjects including Pilates, the ukelele, and Microsoft Teams. Courses without teachers are thriving, too: Duolingo and Codecademy have also seen their numbers double since March.
