The Truth About Millennials Who Live at Home

For the first time in modern history, millennials who live with their parents beats out other living arrangements. So why is this generation not leaving their parent's nest?

New research from Pew Research Center shows that this group of young adults are not the generation that society characterizes them to be. Instead, demographic shifts in marital status, educational attainment, and employment have changed the way young adults in the U.S. are living.

In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household, the research showed. The report found that 32.1 percent of millennials are living in their parent(s)' home, 31.6 percent are married or cohabiting in their own household. Meanwhile, 14 percent head up a household in which they lived alone, were a single parent, or lived with one or more roommates and 22 percent have other living arrangements.

"This turn of events is fueled primarily by the dramatic drop in the share of young Americans who are choosing to settle down romantically before age 35," said Richard Fry, Senior Researcher at Pew. "Dating back to 1880, the most common living arrangement among young adults has been living with a romantic partner, whether a spouse or a significant other. This type of arrangement peaked around 1960, when 62 percent of the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, and only one-in-five were living with their parents."

Although the number of millennials living at home seems high, it is not the highest it has ever been. In fact, Pew reported in 1940, this type of living arrangement peaked at 35 percent of the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds living at home with mom and dad.

"What has changed, instead, is the relative share adopting different ways of living in early adulthood, with the decline of romantic coupling pushing living at home to the top of a much less uniform list of living arrangements," Fry said.