Millennials in the United States, which are generally those between the ages of 18 and 34, have gotten a bad reputation in recent years. Whether it’s their apparent need for safe spaces and trigger warnings or obsessions with video games, millennials aren’t looked too fondly by many of their older counterparts or even peers.
This fact won’t help their image one bit: the percentage of young adults living with their parents has not been this high since 1940, a time when Humphrey Bogart was dominating the silver screen and “Suspense” was taking over the radio.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 40 percent of adults between 18 and 34 live at home, and household formation by millennials is at a record low.
Here is a chart:
What exactly is going on? Experts cited in the report alluded to typical reasons: rising rents, tough mortgage-lending standards and high debt levels. This means that those in this age group are delaying adulthood and won’t be getting married, having children or buying their own home any time soon.
But Michael Snyder of the Economic Collapse Blog has his own take:
“In the old days, people got married young and they set up their own households even if they were dirt poor. But these days we have hordes of single young adults that are perfectly content to sit at home and sponge off of Mommy and Daddy.
“There seems to be a real lack of toughness to this generation of young adults, and many that have perceived this lack of toughness have resorted to referring to them as “Generation Snowflake.'”
Nonetheless, the paucity of household formation by the younger generation is leaving a gaping hole in the housing market.
The newspaper writes:
“Still, delayed household formation has kept home builders guessing about their behavior in coming years. Tim Kane, president of California builder MBK Homes, said it is obvious that household formation is slower for millennials. That leaves him to wonder: ‘Is it going to happen at the same rate, and is it going to happen at all for homeownership?'”
This isn’t just an American phenomenon as many European countries are experiencing the same trends.
For the foreseeable future, it seems that living with your parents will be the norm for many young adults. Unfortunately for many parents in North America and Europe today, they will need to continue to act as the Bank of Mom and Dad.
Yep. It’s true. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, and I see tons of both kinds. The multi generational home used to be a really good thing, with built in childcare and elderly care, no need for daycares or assisted living communities. Families used to work together to share the fruits of their labor and care for each other. That’s a lot better than the current situation we have now, with single family homes where both parents work but wish they could be at home, until one of them actually DOES the stay-at-home parent thing only to find they are trapped alone in a never ending battle of wills with a toddler. Every single stay at home parent I have talked to is crawling out of their skin to get out of the house. Why? They’re alone all day with kids, without a support system or another adult to back them up. Millennial should use this opportunity to help out the family they live with, to pull their own weight, and a lot of them are. They are converting garages and basements into separate apartments and paying rent. They are moving in with grandma and doing chores for her. Some of these living arrangements are actually better than living alone or moving into a party apartment with 3 drunk friends. And delaying having children is actually a good thing, too. Everybody needs to stop freaking out just cuz suburbia is reaching its natural limit. It was a bad idea, anyway. Let it die.