Historical Trends in the Economic Security of Young Adults Living in the Parental Home

• In Event: 422 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Paper Session. Family Inequality

Abstract

This paper looks at whether young adults who live in the parental home have experienced a decline in economic security over time. Using data from the 1974–2015 Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, I looked at changes in the financial contribution that young adults make to the household income, as well as changes in their income to poverty ratio. Since the 1970s, the percentage of income that young adults contribute to the total household income has fallen from a high of 33 percent to 24 percent today. Regression results from endogenous treatment models for labor force participation show that young adults who coreside with parents are significantly poorer today, net of unequal selection into the labor force. What is more, the increase in their poverty has occurred nearly twice as fast since 2000 than in the 25 preceding years. Thus, if they had been living on their own, today’s cohort of coresident young adults would be less able to support themselves. Coresidence may have grown more important as a safety for young adults, as the kind of young adults who live with their parents have grown more economically insecure over time.

Author

• Jonathan Vespa