(Newswire.net — May 26, 2016) —Young Americans aged 18 to 34 years old prefer living with their parents rather than with their romantic partner in their own household, study results by the Pew Research Center showed.
This is the result of shifts in marriage norms, grim economic realities, and growing college enrollment, both before and after the Great Recession and recent improvements in the labor market.
For the first time in more than 130 years, adults are more likely to live in their parents’ home than with a partner, reported the BBC. The study by Pew Research Center showed that 32.1 percent of young Americans live with their parents, 31.6 percent are living in marriage or common-law marriage, and only 14 percent decided to live alone.
It says that the demographic shift in marital status and employment are behind it.
According to a survey, this development of events was primarily driven by a dramatic drop in the number of young Americans who decided to settle down and live with their partners before the ago of 35. Young women are actually still more likely to be living with a spouse or partner (35 percent) than they are to be living with their parents (29 percent).
Young people without college degrees are more likely to be living with parents, than their more educated peers.
Historically, the largest number of Americans living with their partners was recorded in 1960. In this year, only one in five young people lived with their parents – 62 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds were coupled off in their own households and 20 percent were living with parents.
Since then, the decision on living with a partner began dropping increasingly.
The Research Center Pew study also points out that as unemployment of young people has risen, and the salaries of those who have jobs have stagnated for years, so has the number of Americans living at home with parents risen.
Another Pew research projected that up to a quarter of today’s young adults may never marry. How this will affect the future of housing, families, and work has yet to be seen.