{"id":86,"date":"2023-02-27T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/do-52-of-young-adults-really-live-with-their-parents\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:57:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:57:23","slug":"do-52-of-young-adults-really-live-with-their-parents","status":"publish","type":"essays","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/do-52-of-young-adults-really-live-with-their-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Do 52% of Young Adults Really Live with Their Parents? It\u2019s Complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A meme<\/span><\/a> recently circulated on social media that had people in a tizzy: It claimed<\/span><\/a> 52% of young adults live with their parents.<\/p>\n

If this is the first time you\u2019re learning of this bewildering statistic, you\u2019re probably jumping to one of two conclusions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    The \u201ccupcake trophy generation\u201d clearly can\u2019t hack it without mommy and daddy; if they\u2019d stop getting degrees in underwater basket-weaving and YOLOing it up in Europe, they could hurry up and be miserable like the rest of us. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    The system is broken to the point that the most educated, most in-debt generation of all time can\u2019t make ends meet; things are f***ed beyond repair and we need to blow the whole thing up and start over.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    …Or, maybe, you had a third reaction: Incredulity. Could this really be true? These numbers seem too high. <\/em><\/p>\n

    Some responses to the meme pointed out that the numbers could be skewed for several reasons, including people whose parents live with them<\/em> (as in, the child is a caretaker). Others noted that \u201cyoung adults\u201d includes college students, who would be smart to live at home rather than paying an outrageous amount to live on campus. <\/p>\n

    Still, others went back a step and asked, \u201cWhy have we decided this is a bad thing?\u201d Shipping out of the nest at age 18 (or else you\u2019re a failure<\/em>!) is not<\/strong> a global expectation; multigenerational living is normal and culturally prevalent outside the US.<\/p>\n

    My first question: What even constitutes \u201ca young adult\u201d?<\/p>\n

    But before we start spiraling, let\u2019s ask ourselves an important question: Is this claim legitimate? And if it is, why?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n

    Where does the data come from? Let\u2019s dig in.<\/h2>\n

    The first stop on our investigative journey is to check the Pew Research Center<\/span><\/a>, since they have the ~historical context~:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n

    For starters, we now have a more substantive, specific definition of \u201cyoung adults\u201d: 18 to 29 years olds.<\/p>\n

    In the chart above, we can examine 120 years of data about the living situations of 18-29-year-olds in the US. Between 1900 and 1930, the number of young adults living at home hovers in the low-40% range, and spikes at 48% in 1940 (during World War II). <\/p>\n

    A steep dropoff follows, hitting a low point of 29% in the 1960s, and staying relatively low until climbing again in the 1990s. <\/p>\n

    Then, for the first time since WWII, numbers breached 40% in the 2010s.<\/p>\n

    They\u2019ve remained high through today, reaching a new peak of 52% in July 2020, during\u2026 well, you know.<\/p>\n

    At a high level, it\u2019s hard not<\/em> to notice that the \u201cspikes\u201d of adult children living at home coincide with some of the diciest economic times (the Great Depression, the Great Recession, Covid-19).<\/p>\n

    (Pew is also careful to note that the way this data is captured has changed over time; it appears there were three different means of collection over the ~120 years shown. As with all conclusions that hinge on data, our hot takes can only be as valid and sound as the data itself.)<\/p>\n

    But trendlines aside, there\u2019s one major nuance here that the headlines ignore: <\/p>\n

    All young adults are not created equal.<\/h2>\n

    Because here\u2019s the kicker: Most<\/em> of the growth was generated by the youngest of young adults.<\/p>\n

    \u201c2.1 million<\/span><\/a> of the 2.6 million increase\u201d in 18- to 29-year-olds was driven by 18- to 24-year-olds, the same cohort that\u2019s more likely to be found still in school. Per Pew, \u201cAmong all adults who moved due to the pandemic, 23% said the most important reason was because their college campus had closed, and 18% said it was due to job loss or other financial reasons.\u201d <\/p>\n

    When you segment the 18- to 29-year-old group into 18- to 24-year-olds and 25- to 29-year-olds, the picture looks completely different: The growth for the older crew increased from 26% in February 2020 to 28% in July 2020\u2014a far cry from the \u201c52% of young adults\u201d blanket claim.<\/p>\n

    Age differentiation feels important, since the outraged crowd in the meme comments seemed to picture Brennan and Dale building adult bunk beds when they\u2019re claiming young adults have no desire to be independent anymore:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"\"\/<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n

    And while things seem (?) to be \u201cnormalizing,\u201d what if \u201cnormal\u201d might still be bad?<\/h2>\n

    A USA Today fact check<\/span><\/a> from late 2021 noted that the number had begun dropping again back down to around 47%, which is more in line with pre-pandemic numbers.<\/p>\n

    But 47% is still\u2014historically\u2014high.<\/p>\n

    And what\u2019s been most<\/em> interesting is the way the media has run with this story\u2014that \u201cHALF OF AMERICANS AGED 18 TO 29 LIVE WITH THEIR PARENTS!\u201d\u2014assigning a more damning narrative. Several of the articles (like this one<\/span><\/a> from Yahoo! Finance, and this one<\/span><\/a> from Fortune) even claim that young adults are living at home so they can buy Chanel bags and flex on their friends, though the relationship between the two data points is tenuous at best. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    >
    \n \u201c<\/span>Several articles even claim that young adults are living at home so they can buy Chanel bags and flex on their friends, though the relationship between the two data points is tenuous at best.\u00a0\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
    \n

    The logic posited is, \u201cYoung people are living at home at record rates and<\/em> luxury goods sales are rising among young people; ergo, young people are living at home because\/so<\/em> they can buy luxury goods,\u201d which is weird, considering later in the same Yahoo! Finance article,<\/em> it states that 51% of young adults say they\u2019re living at home so they can save money and 39% of them say it\u2019s because they can\u2019t afford rent.<\/p>\n

    To be fair, these outlets are just reporting what banks like Morgan Stanley are telling them<\/span><\/a>: \u201cWe think the structural change in demographics might have been overlooked,\u201d said analyst Edouard Aubin. \u201cOne of the key demographic trends in the US (and the broader Western market) has been the rising number of young adults living with their parents, driven by financial concerns (i.e., rental costs) as well as other sociological factors (e.g., higher penetration of higher education and increasingly delayed age for marriage).\u201d<\/p>\n

    But as we covered just a few weeks ago<\/span><\/a>, the richest young people are richer than any other cohort of young people in history\u2014there\u2019s no evidentiary support for the idea that the quarter or so of 25- to 29-year-olds who are living in their childhood bedrooms are also<\/em> the group pumping up the price of Gucci slides.<\/p>\n

    Though that\u2019s certainly the story the media seems to be running with, evidence be damned: A quick Google search reveals that this statistic is\u2014more often than not\u2014paired with a convenient addendum about the \u201cluxury boom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"\"\/<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n

    But it\u2019s probably untrue that \u201ckids these days\u201d just prefer<\/em> being gig workers without health insurance who live with their parents\u2026 <\/h2>\n

    We have a tendency to attribute these circumstances to personal preference: \u201cYoung people these days are just so different<\/em> than young people of the past! They don\u2019t want to be independent! They don\u2019t want to work! They don\u2019t want to have a house of their own!\u201d <\/p>\n

    But as our interesting trend line shows us, \u2018young adults living at home because they literally can\u2019t afford not to<\/em>\u2019 seems a fairly accurate barometer for how dire our economic situation is. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \"\"\/<\/p>\n

    \n

    In a culture where living with your parents as an adult is not<\/em> the norm, it stands to reason this isn\u2019t the default first choice for people in their twenties. <\/p>\n

    It\u2019s probably not<\/em> individual behavior, changes in generational preferences, or slippery cultural phenomena that are responsible for these massive, demographic-wide shifts at the aggregate.<\/p>\n

    Instead, it\u2019s probably just the result of a much more boring, much sadder story: a worsening economic reality. <\/strong><\/p>\n

    And if we want things to improve, blaming luxury handbags and adult bunk beds probably isn\u2019t the solution. Rather, we can examine the types of policy decisions in decades past that were associated with lower<\/em> rates of \u201cadult children living at home with their parents\u201d for answers\u2014especially since this group is most vulnerable to changes in the labor market, as entrants with low capital but high potential.<\/p>\n

    One thing is for sure: 47% of young adults aged 18 to 29 may live with their parents today, but trust me, it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A meme recently circulated on social media that had people in a tizzy: It claimed 52% of young adults live with their parents. If this is the first time you\u2019re learning of this bewildering statistic, you\u2019re probably jumping to one of two conclusions: The \u201ccupcake trophy generation\u201d clearly can\u2019t hack it without mommy and daddy; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2507,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","essays","type-essays","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"yoast_head":"\nDo 52% of Young Adults Really Live with Their Parents? 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