Millennials are doing something that past generations weren’t so prone to doing: living at home throughout their 20s.
Census data shows that in 1960, less than one in six 25-year-olds lived with their parents. By 2014, this figure had increased to one in three doing so. This trend of millennials staying with their parents after graduating from college only looks to be accelerating.
With the current direction, it’s much less surprising to hear this week’s findings from the Pew Research Center that revealed how for the first time in over 100 years, more young 18-to 34-year-olds are living with their parents than with a partner or significant other.
Although this trend of living at home longer began to accelerate around the time that the economy went south, the fact that the trend has continue to progress since the economic recovery, suggests that other factors are also at play.
Some of these factors include the delay of marriage, the proliferation of continuing education, and the decrease in stigma of living at home into adulthood.
While a lack of employment is not necessarily the issue, other financial factors can come into play. Rent has increased disproportionately with wage increases, which has made it harder for millennials to move into a place of their own.
In addition, young Americans have been impacted by the significant increases in student debt. Data collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the total student debt owed by Americans under 30 amounts to $322 billion.
All of these societal trends have made it so it is not so rare for millennials to continue living at home. Unless prevailing trends change in some respect, living at home at 28— or older— may become the norm.
