Parents of graduating seniors might want to postpone turning their child’s bedroom into a guest room. A new study finds that young adults are not only moving back home at higher rates than ever before, they also don’t seem in a rush to move out.



Daniel Sherrett, 28, prepares dinner with his mother as part of his deal to live at home. Parents and children are sharing homes for longer than expected. (Michael Temchine/For The Washington Post)

Based on a survey of 2,048 adults nationwide and analysis of Census Bureau data, Pew found there is now very little stigma for an adult child who moves back in with parents. Much of that is because the number of young Americans living in multi-generational family households spiked in the last five years and is now at the highest level since the 1950s. In 2010, 21.6 percent of of 25- to 34-year-olds lived with other generations in the same household.

Among the other findings:

● Among adults ages 25 to 34, 61 percent say they have friends or family members who have moved in with their parents over the past few years because of economic conditions.

●Three-in-ten parents of adult children (29 percent) report that a child of theirs has moved in with them in the past few years because of the economy.

● Forty-eight percent of these “boomerang” children report that they have paid rent to their parents, and 89 percent say they have helped with household expenses.

●About one quarter say the living arrangement has been bad for their relationship with their parents; a quarter say it’s been good and nearly half say it hasn’t made a difference.

●The youngest adults — those ages 18 to 24 — who are living at home (or moved back in temporarily in recent years) have a much more positive view than those in their late 20s and early 30s on how returning home has affected their relationship with their parents. They also are much less likely than 25- to 34-year-olds to say moving back home was an economic necessity.

● Nearly eight-in-ten (78 percent) of these 25- to 34-year-olds say they don’t currently have enough money to lead the kind of life they want, compared with 55 percent of their same-aged peers who aren’t living with their parents.

●In 2010, the poverty rate for young adults ages 25 to 34 who lived in multi-generational households was 9.8 percent, compared with a poverty rate of 17.4 percent among young adults living in other households.

●Among 18- to 34-year-olds who are not employed nearly half have lived with their parents, compared with only 30 percent of those who are employed full time.

● Among adults ages 30 to 34, those without a college degree are twice as likely as those who have graduated from college to be living with or have moved back in with their parents (22 percent vs. 10 percent). There is little variation in young adults’ living arrangements by gender or race.

Do you have an adult child with plans to move back in? How do you feel about it? How is it affecting your relationship?

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