Below is a complimentary Demography Unplugged research note written by Hedgeye Demography analyst Neil Howe. Click here to learn more and subscribe.
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Will the spate of young adults moving home during the pandemic change Americans’ perceptions of living at home? The recent rush accelerates a trend that was already happening—and as living at home becomes more and more common, the long-held stigmas against it are slowly weakening. (The Atlantic) |
NH: As I discussed back in July, about 9% of 18- to 29-year-olds moved due to the pandemic. (See “Pandemic Accelerates Moving Back Home.”) Most moved in with family members, inspiring plenty of articles about the awkwardness of moving back into your childhood bedroom and adult children learning to navigate new dynamics with their parents under one roof again.
These articles treat living at home as if it were a new phenomenon. But the truth is they could have been written at any point in the past 10 years. In 2014, living at home became the most common living arrangement among Americans ages 18 to 34, overtaking living with a romantic partner or spouse for the first time on record.
This has occurred for multiple reasons, many of which are tied to long-term shifts in the economy, the education system, and how young people approach romantic relationships and marriage. Some of the drivers are no doubt generational.
Today’s young adults are more likely to have close personal relationships with their parents and grandparents than their own parents (Boomers and Xers) had at the same age. They are also more averse to taking early risks in their careers and marriages.
Multigenerational living has long been the norm elsewhere in the world. In Mediterranean countries like Italy and Greece, and across East and South Asia, it’s customary for adults to live at home until they get married. As in America, these trends strengthened during and after the Great Recession.
Yet as writer Joe Pinsker points out, American perceptions of living at home haven’t caught up with the numbers. Many Americans continue to associate living at home as an adult with irresponsibility, laziness, and “failure to launch.” This includes many of the young adults who have been forced to do it recently.
Even if living at home is a sensible choice, particularly if they’ve lost their jobs or rent in an expensive city, they’ve struggled to shake the sense that going back home makes them a failure.
At last, this may be changing. Moving back home due to a public-health crisis makes it more likely that observers will shrug instead of pass judgment.
This would be an especially welcome development for low SES (socioeconomic status) families. In recent years, surveys have repeatedly shown that lower-income and less educated young adults have been significantly more likely than their higher-income or more educated counterparts to live at home. Blacks and Hispanics (both 36%) were slightly more likely to live at home than whites (30%). Given COVID-19’s regressive impact on employment, it’s safe to say these trends have only strengthened over the last year.
Yet these are also the groups expressing the strongest stigma against living at home. In surveys, lower-income Americans and nonwhites are substantially more likely to say that their kids should be financially independent and out of the house by age 18. (See “Millennials Get Financial Help from Mom and Dad.”) Affluent and college-educated parents, whose kids are less likely to live at home, are less bothered by the prospect.
The sense of disappointment that so often greets young adults who return to live in their parents' homes is augmented by the perception that this multigenerational living arrangement is somehow new or abnormal. In fact, it's neither--even in America.
For most of American history, a much larger share of young adults (and elders) lived with their parents and children that was true during the early post-World War II era. The Eisenhower and Great Society decades--back when the suburbs grew, tract homes proliferated, and the "nuclear family" became the norm--actually represented a unique and unprecedented low point in multigenerational living arrangements.
In 1940, when America still languished in the doldrums of the Great Depression, 35% of the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds lived with their parents. That's right, we're talking about the Greatest Generation just before they earned their brand. In subsequent years, this rate declined before bottoming out in the 1960s at around 20%. It has been steadily rising ever since and today is around 32%.
So here's some advice to Millennials. If you want to find out how a generation of young adults stuck at home can still accomplish great things in life, just go talk to your grandparents.
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ABOUT NEIL HOWE
Neil Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation's leading thinker on today's generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America's future.
A historian, economist, and demographer, Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is a senior associate to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., where he helps direct the CSIS Global Aging Initiative.
Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss' first book, Generations is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it "the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read" and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it "an intellectual tour de force." Of their book, The Fourth Turning, The Boston Globe wrote, "If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets."
Howe and Strauss originally coined the term "Millennial Generation" in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising. His work has been featured frequently in the media, including USA Today, CNN, the New York Times, and CBS' 60 Minutes.
Previously, with Peter G. Peterson, Howe co-authored On Borrowed Time, a pioneering call for budgetary reform and The Graying of the Great Powers with Richard Jackson.
Howe received his B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and later earned graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University.
