Over the past couple of years, the strong economic downturn that has been sweeping the world produced a series of devastating effects, both financially and economically. But it also triggered the emergence of some interesting social effects as well. One of these consequences is the fact that more and more multi-generation families – composed of grandparents, parents and children – live under the same roof. The economic crisis is partially responsible for this state of affairs, a new study demonstrates, according to
LiveScience.
It is estimated that about one in six residents of the United States lives in such arrangements, the report shows. The number, around 49 million Americans, is considerably larger than the 28 million people that did the same in the 1980s. According to the researchers behind the new investigation, it may be that multi-generational households are making a spectacular comeback. Adult children move back in with their parents, or the elderly move in with their children's families. These kinds of arrangements are to many people the beacon of times long gone, but the study shows that this may again become the norm in modern families.
The research determined that the number of US citizens that adopted this type of cohabitation rose by more than 2.6 millions between 2007 and 2008 alone. High unemployment rates and a sharp increase in the number of foreclosures drove many students, for example, to move back home, and also middle-aged men and women to seek shelter in their parents' homes. The extent to which these phenomena affected the country has yet to be determined, as the new study only focused on a representative sample of the continental US population. Nearly 3,000 people were interviewed for this researcher, all of them between February and March 2009. The actual number may at this point be a lot higher, the experts say.
The study also determined that there were very few population subgroups that were immune to the effects of this crisis. For example, in the case of adults aged between 25 and 34, who are generally considered to be the most independent, 20 percent live now in multi-generational households. The main reason for this is that they cannot afford to pay for their own accommodations, even if this is what they want. The new study was compiled by investigators at the Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends project. They say that the advantage for this type of communal living is the appearance of more tightly-knitted families.
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