Census Finds More Young Adults Living At Home With Parents

Via Huffington Post
November 5, 2011

In Italy, they're known as "mammone", a staple of adult men living with at home with their mothers. In the US, they're known as "losers", and they're on the rise. So much for that "empty nest".

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the number of men between the ages of 25-34 living at home rose from 14 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2011. Women have managed to escape Jezebel's "loser" nomenclature as Cenus data reports that in 2005 only 8 percent of women in the same age brackets lived at home, with the figure rising to 10 percent now in 2011. Furthermore, NPR reports that while the number of men age 25-34 living with their parents has risen 2.2 percent just in the past year, the number for their female counterparts actually dropped 0.8 percent.

While the Census data did not differentiate between "boomerang children" who previously moved out only to return later, and those who never left their parents' home in the first place, the findings dash any notions for an empty nest. Younger adults, those ages 18-24, are sitting in a similar boat with their older counterparts, with 59 percent of men living with their parents (a 6 percent rise from 2005) and 50 percent of women living with their parents (a 4 percent increase from 2005).

Although The Los Angeles Times points out the increase of adults living in their parents' home began before the recent recession, and outlasted it, many weatherbeaten parents and their filial roommates agree that the dreadful economy is most likely to blame, with unemployment rates and rent remaining high and the outlook of starting a proper career remaining bleak. However, the widening gap between the number of men and women who live with their parents is the figure that is stirring up conversation.

Jezebel has a running list of societal norms in question from the discrepancy in parental attitudes towards men versus women to the possibly more negative implications of a women living at home in comparison to a man. AARP's blog thinks the diminishing stigma of retaining one's childhood dwellings may be a factor in the increase of more boomerang children and an American mammone movement.