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The percentage of young women living at home with parents or relatives has risen to its highest level since 1940 as more millennial women put off marriage, attend college and face high living expenses.

A Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data found that 36.4 per cent of women between the ages 18 and 34 lived with parents or relatives in 2014, the most since at least 1940, when 36.2 per cent lived with family.

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It is a very different world for women now, though, despite the “return to the past, statistically speaking,” says Richard Fry, a senior economist at Pew.

Fry says young women are staying home now because they are they are half as likely to be married as they were 1940 and much more likely to be college-educated. Other economic forces, such as increasing student debt, higher living costs and economic uncertainty, are also playing a role.

Casey Ballard was living away from home in Portland, Oregon, but rent ate up roughly two-thirds of her paycheque and she was ready for a career change. A September move back with family in California allowed her to try out teaching as a substitute and to pursue teaching full-time.