Adults Moving Back Home: Causes, Costs, and Family Impact

Introduction: A Growing Trend

Although the practice is not new, it is becoming a common trend in twenty-first century America for adults to return home after college — or even later in life — to live with their parents. This practice breaks with the tradition of young adults living independently when they reach 18 years of age. While returning home after college has occurred since the early twentieth century, the number of adult children moving home has significantly increased since 2007. This development is the result of many factors.

Economic Drivers of the Boomerang Generation

High housing prices, the rising cost of higher education, and the relative affluence of the older generation are among the reasons adult children move to their childhood homes to live with their parents. Today, almost four in ten adults age 60 or older give money to their adult children, while only about 12% receive financial help from their offspring. The U.S. Census Bureau and other sources confirm that the annual cost of a four-year public education has more than doubled over the last twenty years, while housing prices over the same period have more than tripled (Palmer). This trend has provided more wealth to the baby boomer generation — those born between 1946 and 1964 — while simultaneously making it more difficult for the next generation to gain financial independence.

How Common Is Multigenerational Living?

According to a report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of young adult men living in their parents' home rose from 14% in 2005 to 19% in 2011, and the percentage of young adult women living at home rose from 8% to 10% during the same period. Many point to the economic downturn over the past half decade as the chief driver of this trend. Between 2008 and 2011, the household formation rate fell by more than half, with just 650,000 new households formed annually during this period, compared to an annual rate of 1.5 million between 1997 and 2007. A depressed job market is widely thought to be responsible for this phenomenon (Weston).

These so-called "boomerang kids" who move home for financial stability are quickly becoming the new normal. One-fourth of adults between the ages of 18 and 39 are currently living at home. Given that the U.S. population has been increasing steadily over the last 50 years, it should come as no surprise that one-third of all parents have adult children living at home (Psaty). For many families, this creates a new kind of burden facing future retirees — supporting their adult children well into what would otherwise be their maximum earning and retirement-saving years.

Conclusion

The primary benefit young adults gain from living in their parents' house is the elimination of a large rent bill for their own place. By nature, parents tend to be easygoing with their children, even when those children are mature adults, so most parents tolerate having their offspring at home and prefer not to see them struggle when they can intervene. This natural instinct is deeply embedded in many parents. Furthermore, when young adults are living with their parents, parents sometimes feel freed from the anxiety of worrying about their grown children living on their own. For many, the concern that grown children are adding to household expenses is offset by the reassurance of knowing those children are safely at home (Fingerman et al.).