Once your children launched, you thought you were free, right? But for many parents, their adult children are moving back in for financial relief.
A Pew Research Center analysis of census data found that in 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults 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.
What’s causing this trend? Several factors:
• The high cost of housing
• Burgeoning student debt
• An increased cost of living in many areas
• Slow or stagnant wage growth
• Poor job opportunities — even for adults with a college degree
So, the question for many parents is: Should they welcome back their grown birds into the nest?
This was a question that came up during one of my recent online discussions. Here’s the situation: “Adult daughter and her husband are going through a life transition,” a reader wrote. “She will be teaching school and her husband has a physically strenuous job, which he needs to leave. Fortunately, son-in-law has some good ideas. They have a starter townhouse they can sell or rent. If they move in with us parents, they can save money while he looks for the new job. He can do temp work in the meantime. Thanks to the teaching job, she can cover their insurance costs. Both are highly motivated and hard workers. In spite of the terrible economy when they graduated from college in 2009, they found work, just not the kind that will sustain a family. Is it crazy to invite them to stay with us?”
