This year, the lyrics “I’ll be Home for Christmas” will take on new meaning for many young adults. They’re not only coming home, they’re staying there. A recent Pew Research survey found that 13% of parents said one of their adult sons or daughters had moved back home in the last year alone — adding to the flocks of young people who had already boomeranged back.
It’s a tough time to be a young person just starting out. Last hired, first fired is the job market they walked into — or as one young woman, just back from a job fair, posted on Facebook: “It’s official. My life after college sucks.” Wages are flat or falling. The bill for college looms. No wonder they’re thinking twice about moving in with, let alone marrying, their boyfriend or girlfriend. Who wants to bring those kinds of burdens to the table? In short: life, interrupted.
Yet even before the recession, the path to adulthood was slowing down. Back then, moving back home was a standing joke, not to mention a source of sanctimonious scorn: “When I was a kid, I lived on beans and rice rather than move home.” Kids were coddled, self-indulged. Parents just couldn’t let go.
But after 10 years of exhaustive research as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Network on Transitions to Adulthood, including more than 500 interviews with a diverse group of young adults from across the country, we think the media has it wrong. This generation is not coddled. They are not mooching off their parents in some sort of prolonged adolescence. Quite the contrary. They are amazingly responsible. They are living at home while paying off their debt from college or while returning to school for more training. They’re often saving for a down payment on a home. They’re going after a better job fit. And, contrary to popular assumptions, the slower route they are taking is a good thing.
Young people who take their time get on a more secure path to adulthood. It allows them to get an education, be strategic about their first job, figure out what they want to do in life, be a little more choosey in whom they marry, wait to have children until they’re ready. In fact, rather than wringing our hands over young adults boomeranging back home, we should be more concerned about those who bolt out the door at age 18 and try to rush adulthood.
Tricia, a 30-year-old from Michigan, took the fast lane to adulthood. She, along with her parents, believed in being independent early. She married young, skipped an education for a quick job, and had kids early — just like many did in past generations. Her husband, a roofer, works long days for meager wages. When interviewed, they were living in a motel with their kids. “It’s hard every day,” she said. “This is no place for kids. But once you get put in that situation, it’s so hard to get out.”
To compound their problems, Tricia has serious asthma, and no insurance. When her symptoms get too bad, she checks herself into the hospital and comes out with a “big fat bill” as a reward.
Tricia and her husband’s story is not an unusual one today. The majority of young people in our interviews were treading water, too often struggling to keep their heads above water. A young man with just a high school degree today earns 35% less than he did in the 1970s as outsourcing and other pressures drive down the wages of those with the least education. The do-it-yourself job market leaves all of us responsible for our own training and, more often than not, our own benefits. Gone are secure jobs with clear career ladders. For many, their desperate straits make a college tuition bill, even a modest one, seem untenable. Critical training is therefore put aside in the self-defeating scramble for another buck at two part-time, minimum wage jobs.
Young men are particularly vulnerable. Fewer men than women attend college. Unable to find a “good” job with just a high school degree or even some additional training, they quickly become discouraged. Fully three in 10 young men aged 25-34 with the least education have simply thrown in the towel and dropped out of the workforce altogether — even before the recession. One economist calls this the most disturbing trend in 40 years.
Constant talk of “failure to launch” is a red herring, hiding a much more important conversation we should be having. By continuing to blame parents or young adults themselves for this slower path, we fail to recognize and adapt to a changed world that leaves far too many young people spinning their wheels, digging themselves in deeper and deeper. We also fail to think seriously about what a more secure path might look like — what, for example, it might take to make a path into middle-tier jobs clearer for more young people, or what kind of support young people need to successfully navigate post-secondary school or training, or how we might make education more affordable.
There is, however, a silver lining to this shift back home that we frequently forget. There’s something very positive about a multigenerational household. Families can learn from each other, provide critical resources — giving goes both ways. Parents gain from having their kids home, too, in ways we too often fail to notice. And kids gain immeasurably from the continued guidance and support of their parents.
In many respects, this is a return to the pre-WWII way of living, when young people remained at home longer. Between 1920 and 1940, between 70% and 80% of white males were living at home at age 20, and about 50%-60% of white women were at home. A little more than a third of men were still there at age 25. The post-war fast-track has left such an indelible mark on us that we soon forget that a quick route to adulthood is largely a product of the late 20th century — when jobs were plentiful and the economy was booming. So perhaps this is a return to the norm.
Barbara Ray is the author, with Richard Settersten, of “Not Quite Adults” (Delacorte Press), out now.