Moving out of the childhood home used to be a major rite of passage. Now, it’s becoming common for adult kids to still be ensconced with their parents, often returning home after college for a prolonged stay. (Did you ever see the movie Failure to Launch? That.)
According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. census data in 2016, 15 percent of 25- to 35-year-old Millennials were living in their parents’ home. That’s a hefty five percentage points higher than the figure for Generation Xers who lived with the parents in 2000 and almost twice the number of Silent Generation members who were living at home in 1964.
Read More: What to Do When You’ve Got a Boomerang Kid
The Geography of Prolonged Dependence
Places where adults still live with their parents. Source: MagnifyMoney.com
A new study by MagnifyMoney.com analyzed where exactly these grown kids are living, and here’s some of the fascinating data they found:
- The city with the highest percentage of adults 25 to 40 living with their parents is Riverside, CA. It’s indicated that high unemployment is a key factor.
- Next on the list are those young adults in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York. In these major cities, more than one in four reside in their parents’ house.
- Where do you find the independent young folk? Minneapolis tops the list, with barely 12 percent of people ages 25 to 40 calling Mom and Dad’s place home. Seattle, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City, MO, and Raleigh, NC, all hover in that range.
- Almost a third of returnees are unemployed, and they are more often male than female.
What’s going on with these kids who never leave the nest or boomerang back after school? Economic factors—that is, “Help, I can’t afford my own place”—are definitely at play as Millennials wrestle with student debt and a tough job and housing market. There’s also a societal shift going on in which young adults are delaying some of the typical indicators of independence. Marriage and parenthood are unfolding later than in previous generations.
Tell us, do you have an adult child living at home? Has the experience been positive or negative?
Read more: The Ultimate Role Reversal—When Your Kids Have to Support You
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