If you’re reading this and are in the 18-34 age group, then there’s about a 1-in-3 chance that you’re still living with your parents. John Burger gives us the numbers in his piece today:
A Pew study released Wednesday shows that 32.1% of Americans in that age group live in their parents’ house, while 31.6% live with a spouse or partner in their own homes and 14 percent live alone, as single parents or in a home with roommates or renters. The remainder live with another family member, a nonfamily member or in group-living situations such as a college dorm or prison. To be clear, there was a time when the proportion of young people 18-34 living at home was higher than today— 35% in 1940. But then, living with a spouse or partner was even more popular than that—close to 50%.
As a member of the 32.1% living with their parents, your contributor knows the frustrations of that “failure to launch” feeling. We grew up in an era where the only 20-somethings living at home had either “gone wrong or failed to do right”; now I can count on one hand the friends I have who live on their own, let alone own their own house. Is it possible that we’re all just too lazy to move?
There could be many reasons for this trend in millennial living, so tell us:
And today we celebrate...