A Quarter of Young Adults Lived with Parents During Great Recession Peak
8/1/2012
Stockbyte/Thinkstock(COLUMBUS, Ohio) -- The first thing young adults usually want to do is leave the nest, but sometimes life has other plans.
An analysis by Ohio State University reveals that 24 percent of people ages 20 to 34 lived at home with their parents during the peak years of the Great Recession from 2007 through 2009. That’s substantially higher than the 17 percent in 1980 who didn’t move out of the house.
The OSU study also shows that 43 percent of people under 25 were home dwellers during the Great Recession compared to 32 percent of that age group 30 years ago.
Times were so tough from 2007 to 2009 that one in ten people ages 30 to 34 also found it necessary to live off the kindness of mom and dad. And of this group, 20 percent did so because of divorce.
Overall, more men than women shacked up with their parents, often because they marry later, but also because their parents don’t pressure them into cooking and cleaning.
The main reasons for the migration back home, the study found, had to do with high unemployment, massive student loan debt and general financial insecurity. One group that didn't change their living habits was graduate students, with 8 percent living at home in 1980 and the same percentage during the worst of the economic downturn.
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