If this is the first time you’re learning of this bewildering statistic, you’re probably jumping to one of two conclusions:
- The “cupcake trophy generation” clearly can’t hack it without Mommy and Daddy.
- The system is broken to the point that the most educated, most in-debt generation of all time can’t make ends meet.
...Or, maybe, you had a third reaction: Incredulity. Could this really be true? These numbers seem too high.
But before we start spiraling, let’s ask ourselves an important question: If this claim is legitimate, why?
Where does this data come from?
The first stop on our investigative journey is to check the Pew Research Center, since they have the ~historical context~. For starters, this source provides a specific definition of “young adults”: 18- to 29-year-olds.
It allows us to 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).
A steep drop-off follows, hitting a low point of 29% in the 1960s, and staying relatively low until climbing again in the 1990s. Then, for the first time since WWII, numbers breached 40% in the 2010s.
They’ve remained high through today, reaching a new peak of 52% in July 2020, during…well, you know.
At a high level, it’s hard not to notice that the “spikes” of adult children living at home coincide with some of the diciest economic times (the Great Depression, the Great Recession, Covid-19).
Here’s the kicker: Most of the growth was generated by the youngest of young adults.
“2.1 million of the 2.6 million increase” in 18- to 29-year-olds was driven by 18- to 24-year-olds, the same cohort that’s more likely to be found still in school. Per Pew, “Among 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.”
The growth for the older crew increased from 26% in February 2020 to 28% in July 2020—a far cry from the “52% of young adults” blanket claim (though the younger cohort’s numbers increased from 63% to nearly every three in four young adults).
But what’s been most interesting is the way the media has run with this story—that “HALF OF AMERICANS AGED 18 TO 29 LIVE WITH THEIR PARENTS!”—assigning a more damning narrative. Several of the articles (like this one from Yahoo! Finance, and this one 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.
The logic posited is, “Young people are living at home at record rates and luxury goods sales are rising among young people; ergo, young people are living at home because/so they can buy luxury goods,” which is weird, considering later in the same Yahoo! Finance article, it states that 51% of young adults say they’re living at home so they can save money, and 39% of them say it’s because they can’t afford rent.
We have a tendency to attribute these types of generational shifts and circumstances to personal preference: “Young people these days are just so different than young people of the past! They don’t want to be independent! They don’t want to work! They don’t want to have a house of their own!”
But as our interesting trend line shows us, “young adults living at home because they literally can’t afford not to” seems a fairly accurate barometer for how dire our economic situation is.
Read the full article.
