Courtesy of Mish.
According to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau Multigenerational households on rise in U.S.
More than 4.3 million, or 5.6 percent, of the 76 million family households in the U.S. today are multigenerational households, or families living together that include a grandparent, parent and children as well as other family members, according to a study by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Multigenerational Families
- 3.7% in 2000
- 4.0% in 2010
- 5.6% in 2012
There was only a gain of .3% in the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, but a gain of 1.6% in the next two years.
That small 1.6% increase represents a decrease in demand of 1.216 million homes.
However, those survey results are for three generations and thus do not include all the kids graduating from college, with no job, and moving back home.
Boomerang Students Return Home
Boomerang kids with no jobs returning home has an even greater impact on housing demand. CNN Living discusses the “boomerang” effect in College grads and their families learn to live together.
More than half of college graduates move back home, sociologist Katherine Newman wrote in her book, “The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition,” based on surveys conducted worldwide.
And many of them are finding it isn’t as painful as it sounds, she said. By setting ground rules and establishing expectations on both sides, parents and their adult children are learning to live together.
“People anticipate it will be more complicated than it turns out to be,” said Newman, dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s remarkably smooth for most families.”
Perhaps that’s because it’s such a common phenomenon. A Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. census data found that the share of Americans living in multigenerational households is at its highest level since the 1950s….
