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After graduating from college in 2021, Bethany Clark moved back in with her parents. She intended to study full-time for a year to become her teacher, so it made sense to live at her home in Surrey, England, during her lack of income. But when she took her first teaching job the following year, she didn’t quit. “She didn’t see the point in moving without any savings,” she told me. Two years later, she is 24 years old and still living with her parents, and she plans to stay for another year, maybe two.
Clark is not alone. There are 620,000 more adults living with their parents in the UK than ten years ago. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of young people living at home in the United States has increased by 87% over the past 20 years. More than half of 18- to 24-year-olds in America now live with their parents. Additionally, a recent survey by RentCafe found that 41% of adult Gen Z respondents who live with family members said they thought they would live with another family member for at least another two years.
This trend starts in the housing market. In 2022, Moody’s reported that for the first time, the average American renter is spending more than 30% of their income on rent, the government’s standard for what is considered “rent burdened.” And even before the recent market surge, HotPads estimated in 2018 that Gen Zers would spend $226,000 on rent over their lifetime, adjusted for inflation. That’s about $24,000 more than Millennials and about $77,000 more than Baby Boomers. This places a huge burden on the youngest renters. A 2023 Bloomberg News/Harris Poll survey of 4,100 adults found that 70% of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents said they would be financially vulnerable if they chose to live elsewhere. respondents said they would not be in a rich situation.
“I work in the same area that my family lives in, and I can’t justify moving down the road and paying exorbitant rent just to get a little extra space,” Clark told me. Ta. She pays a small amount of rent to her parents but is able to save most of her income.
Home ownership is similarly out of reach. While some Gen Zers have managed to break into the housing market, the average age of first-time homebuyers reached an all-time high of 36 last year, according to a study by the National Association of Realtors. In a 2022 Freddie Mac survey, more than one-third of Gen Z respondents said it was something they thought they would never be able to accomplish.
In the wake of the Great Recession, Millennials were the first generation to stay home en masse, and now Gen Z is following in their footsteps. But unlike millennials, who were considered lazy for living with their parents well into their 20s, living at home has become cool for Gen Z. In today’s affordable housing crisis, older generations are beginning to understand that it often makes sense to stay home and save. But that decision also comes with a downside. Living alone is an important step towards adulthood, and research shows that those who put off leaving the nest pay a price, both financially and emotionally.
Historically, during times of economic instability, more young people have moved to live with their parents. In 1940, at the end of the Great Depression, 48% of 18- to 29-year-olds lived with their parents, a percentage that would not be surpassed until 2020.
After the Great Recession in 2010, the percentage of young adults who lived with their parents was similarly 44%. Millennials were just joining the workforce at a time when finding jobs was tough. Despite historically tough economic conditions, baby boomers often blamed millennials’ tendency to live with their parents on technology addiction and laziness. In 2013, Bloomberg launched an entire ad campaign targeting millennials, focusing on the 22 million college graduates still living at home, with the message: “No shame, we’re on target,” she wrote, along with an offer for a free subscription to her 12th issue of Bloomberg Businessweek. A 2012 Guardian article read: “Still living with your parents at 30? Get a life.”
When the cost of living and housing becomes extremely high, it affects everyone.
But Gen Z is taking things much more lightly. Amy Lewthwaite, 24, has never left her parents’ home in south-west London. Currently, she is able to save her 30% of her monthly income as a social worker and is considering buying her property with her sister within the next year or two. . For people like Lewthwaite, living with her mom and dad is often touted as a smart financial move, given her high housing costs. In 2020, the Financial Times published an article titled “Why it’s cool to move back home with your parents,” and a May Guardian article “’Win-win’: Adult children I will live at home,” he declared.
“If I moved now and rented somewhere else, my savings would be gone,” Lewthwaite told me. “I might have spent it all on rent.”
According to the Bloomberg-Harris Poll, 40% of young people say they feel happy living at home, and one-third say they feel they made a wise choice to live with family. And 87% said they don’t think people should criticize people for living at home. “I’ve never gotten any negative feedback about this from the older generation either,” Clark told me. “When the cost of living and housing is so high, it hits everyone.”
However, not everyone is participating. A Pew survey conducted in October 2021 found that more than one-third of Americans believe it is bad for society for young people to live with their parents. Only 16% said it was a good thing. With rents rising, many young people feel they have no choice, but whether living at home will actually be advantageous for them is another question.
A 2019 report from the Urban Institute found that people who lived with their parents between the ages of 25 and 34 were significantly less likely to become homeowners 10 years later. The study compared people who rented or bought their own home with people who lived with their parents. It found that 32% of young people who initially lived with their parents still had not achieved independent living after 10 years, but almost all former renters and homeowners had not achieved independent living. It turned out that it was.
For those who bought a house after living with their parents, there seemed to be no resistance. Median home prices were consistent regardless of residence type 10 years ago, with both groups reporting median home prices between $200,000 and $210,000. .
Next, there is the mental burden. Sarah Obtor returned to her parents’ home in Georgia after being forced to take a leave of absence from her university due to her mental health. She is 20 years old and is feeling the toll of being confined to her home. “No matter how old you are, they still think of you as a child,” she says. His two older siblings, ages 27 and 29, also live at home, but Obtur said he can’t wait to move out. She plans to return to college in the fall, and she plans to live on campus. Her hope is that once she graduates she will be able to find her own place.
My 20s were a time to focus on getting married and raising children. Currently, these responsibilities are not given to most people until nearly a decade later.
In a study conducted in 2017, people who boomeranged back into their parents’ homes reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms. A 2022 study found that spending more time with parents and family can cause tensions with those back home. “Even if you live with your family, you’ll still want to be yourself,” says Prabhash Edirisinghe, assistant professor of consumer culture and marketing at Northumbria University. “Part of that is having interpersonal boundaries and personal space. That can be very difficult in a multigenerational family, especially if you live in a small, crowded space.”
For many young people, living alone is an important step toward feeling like an adult. In another 2022 study, researchers found that people who had to move back in with their parents during the pandemic experienced a major setback in feeling like they had grown. “Just because you grow up doesn’t mean you can do everything you want,” Obutor told me.
Lewthwaite agrees. “When you live with your parents, you don’t have the space to do adult things like host dinner parties or enjoy wine and cheese nights.”
With important life milestones around the corner, like moving, buying a home, or having a child, Gen Z can feel like they’re falling behind. A 2022 survey conducted by UK-based relationship support network Related found that 83% of Gen Z said they felt pressured to achieve important milestones, compared to 77% of Millennials. %, and 66% of people over 75 said they had felt that way. when they were young.
For Gen Z, the very concept of adulthood is changing. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychology professor at Clark University, told me that young people are experiencing a new life stage he calls “emerging adulthood.” “My 20s were a time when I was focused on getting married and raising young children,” Arnett said. “It’s almost 10 years before these responsibilities are given to most people.”
After speaking with young people still living with their parents, Arnett said, “Most of them have a sense of being at an in-between stage in their lives.” The pursuit of independence and the ability to shape one’s own life away from the family home now begins at an increasingly later stage.
“It doesn’t mean they’re lazy. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to be adults. It doesn’t mean they’re avoiding adult responsibilities,” Arnett says. “It’s just that times have changed.”
Still, this change is not entirely positive. Most young people are forced into this situation instead of choosing to live longer at home. Rising housing costs and stagnant wages have made independence a luxury that many young people simply cannot afford.as a person X “Living in my parents’ house is free because I’m paying with my soul.”
Eve Upton-Clark A feature writer who covers culture and society.
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