More women are living at home with their family than any time since 1940 – according to new research.
The Pew Research Centre found that for the first time since pre-WWII, women aged 18-34 are more likely to be living in the family home than ever before.
Analysing the latest US Census number, the research team found “36.4% of women ages 18 to 34 resided with family in 2014, mainly in the home of mom, dad or both,” signalling a record high for women staying under their parents’ roofs.
Drilling down the data, the team concluded:
‘You’d have to go back 74 years to observe similar living arrangements among American young women. Young men, too, are increasingly living in the same situation, but unlike women their share hasn’t climbed to its level from 1940, the highest year on record. (Comparable data on living arrangements are not available from before then.)
Back in 1940, 36.2% of young women lived with their parents or relatives. That number dropped over the next couple of decades as marriage rates increased and women began joining the workforce in larger numbers, becoming financially able to live on their own.’
So what’s driving the move back home?
While women in the 1940s were less likely to travel for education, there was also a greater emphasis on placing women in the home to help with household chores. It was also custom for women to remain living at home until they were married.
Nowadays, the results might be the same but for very different reasons.
As well as rising rent costs, more women are likely to attend college nowadays, meaning if you can stay in your family home you could save some serious cash while in college.
Pew also suggests that the average age of a woman’s first marriage has dramatically risen from 21.5years of age, to 27 years of age in 2014.
The research reflected a similar trend for young men, but noted that the numbers don’t match the high levels experienced pre-WWII.
