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The share of young adults in the United States who are living with a parent has grown considerably in recent decades, a trend that many Americans see as bad for society, according to a survey conducted in October 2021.
Over a third of Americans (36%) say that more young adults living with their parents is bad for society, while 16% say it is good for society. Nearly half of Americans (47%) say it doesn’t make a difference.
In July 2022, half of adults ages 18 to 29 were living with one or both of their parents. This was down from a recent peak of 52% in June 2020 but still significantly higher than the share who were living with their parents in 2010 (44% on average that year) or 2000 (38% on average).
On balance, people around the world most often cite family – followed by occupation and material well-being – when asked to describe what makes their lives meaningful. But the list looks somewhat different among the youngest and oldest adults surveyed.
Among those ages 18 to 29, friends and community often rank in the top three responses offered – usually second to family and far outpacing material well-being. Among those ages 65 and older, material well-being and health are frequently mentioned as top sources of meaning, while occupation isn’t mentioned enough to make the top three responses in any place surveyed.
In July, 52% of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 47% in February, according to a new analysis of monthly Census Bureau data. The number living with parents grew to 26.6 million, an increase of 2.6 million from February. The number and share of young adults living with their parents grew across the board for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions. Growth was sharpest for the youngest adults (ages 18 to 24) and for White young adults.
Financial independence is one of the many markers used to designate the crossover from childhood into young adulthood, and it’s a milestone most Americans
Financial independence is one of the many markers used to designate the crossover from childhood into young adulthood, and it’s a milestone most Americans (64%) think young adults should reach by the time they are 22 years old, according to our new study. But that’s not the reality for most young adults who’ve reached this age.
Younger adults in the U.S. are better able than older adults to distinguish factual statements from opinion statements, according to a survey conducted earlier this year in which respondents were asked to categorize five factual statements and five opinion statements. Younger adults are not only better overall at correctly identifying factual and opinion news statements – they can do so regardless of the ideological appeal of the statements.
Facebook and YouTube dominate the social media landscape. But younger Americans, especially those ages 18 to 24, stand out in using a variety of platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. They also use these platforms more frequently than older generations.
Facebook and YouTube dominate the social media landscape in 2018, as notable majorities of U.S. adults use each of these sites. But younger Americans (especially those ages 18 to 24) stand out for embracing a variety of platforms, like Snapchat and Instagram, and using them frequently.
Also, the share of social media users who say these platforms would be hard to give up has increased by 12 percentage points since 2014. But still, a majority of users (59%) say it would not be hard to stop using social media.
Facebook remains the primary platform for most Americans, and YouTube is now used by nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults and 94% of 18- to 24-year-olds. Younger Americans (especially those ages 18 to 24) stand out for embracing a variety of platforms and using them frequently.
More Millennial households are in poverty than households headed by any other generation, and millennial households dominate the ranks of the nation’s renters. Learn more about Millennial households.
It may seem counterintuitive that Millennials would be contributing to a trend toward less geographic mobility. After all, they are less likely than earlier generations to have three things that tend to be impediments to moving for a young adult: a spouse, a house and a child.
So then why are they moving less than previous generations did at their age?
A recent Pew Research Center analysis of census data found that in 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. were more likely to be living in their parents’ home than with a spouse or partner in their own household. A closer analysis of the data helps explain why: Adults in their late 20s and early 30s are living with their parents at record or near-record levels.
Despite the popular image of college-educated adults moving back into the family nest after graduation, young adults with at least a bachelor’s degree are the least likely to live with their parents (19% did in 2014). And the share of college grads doing so has risen less sharply than that of young adults with a high school education or less. Since 1960 (the overall low point for 18- to 34-year-olds living at home), the living-at-home share of college grads has grown by 74%, as opposed to a 103% increase for young adults with only a high school diploma and an 87% increase for those who did not finish high school.
Among young adults, living arrangements differ significantly by gender. For men ages 18 to 34, living at home with mom and/or dad has been the dominant living arrangement since 2009. In 2014, 28% of young men were living with a spouse or partner in their own home, while 35% were living in the home of their parent(s). For their part, young women are on the cusp of crossing over this threshold: They are still more likely to be living with a spouse or romantic partner (35%) than they are to be living with their parent(s) (29%).
Beyond gender, young adults’ living arrangements differ considerably by education and racial and ethnic background—both of which are tied to economic wherewithal. For young adults without a bachelor’s degree, as of 2008 living at home with their parents was more prevalent than living with a romantic partner. By 2014, 36% of 18- to 34-year-olds who had not completed a bachelor’s degree were living with their parent(s) while 27% were living with a spouse or partner. Among college graduates, in 2014 46% were married or living with a partner, and only 19% were living with their parent(s). Young adults with a college degree have fared much better in the labor market than their less-educated counterparts, which has in turn made it easier to establish their own households.
More young adults in the U.S. are living with their parents than at any time since around 1940, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data. This trend is not, as you might assume, solely a consequence of the 2007-09 Great Recession, nor is it limited to the U.S. Across much of the developed world, researchers have noted that more young adults are living at their parents’ homes for longer periods – in some cases because they never left, in others because they moved back after being on their own in college or the working world.
Broad demographic shifts in marital status, educational attainment and employment have transformed the way young adults in the U.S. are living, and a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data highlights the implications of these changes for the most basic element of their lives – where they call home. In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household.
Teens and young adults were among the groups hit hardest by the global financial crisis. And while many young people have since regained their footing – as employees, students or both – there are still millions in the U.S. and abroad who are neither working nor in school. Though sometimes referred to as “disconnected” or “detached” youth, globally those young people often are called “NEETs” – because they are neither employed nor in education or training.
Although NEET rates rose both in the U.S. and the EU during and after the crisis, they jumped higher but have fallen faster in the U.S. By contrast, many EU countries’ NEET rates remain well above pre-crisis levels. (While similar, the U.S. and EU measures aren’t directly comparable – in part because the EU begins tracking young people’s labor-force participation at 15 rather than 16, and also because apprenticeships and other workplace-based training is more common in Europe than in the U.S.)
