Bob CollinsLiving with parents is now the most common living arrangement for people between the ages of 18 and 34, Pew Research revealed in a survey released today.
It’s the first time in the “modern era” — about 130 years — that the age group was more likely to be living with parents than with a spouse or partner in their own home.
It turns out there actually is a reason they say romance is dead.
This turn of events is fueled primarily by the dramatic drop in the share of young Americans who are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35.
Dating back to 1880, the most common living arrangement among young adults has been living with a romantic partner, whether a spouse or a significant other. This type of arrangement peaked around 1960, when 62% of the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, and only one-in-five were living with their parents.
By 2014, 31.6% of young adults were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, below the share living in the home of their parent(s) (32.1%).
Some 14% of young adults were heading up a household in which they lived alone, were a single parent or lived with one or more roommates. The remaining 22% lived in the home of another family member (such as a grandparent, in-law or sibling), a non-relative, or in group quarters (college dormitories fall into this category).
Men living with parents has been the most dominant living arrangement since 2009, the survey said. But women are still more likely to live with a partner of some sort.
The main question from the survey is this: Is marriage being postponed or is this a full-scale retreat from the institution?
A previous analysis said 1 in 4 may never marry, a trend that cuts across all ethnic and racial groups.
