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trends
Boomerang Kids What empty nest? Adult children returning home in droves
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By Lou Sorendo oomerangs return to their source, and so do financially s t r a p p e d a d u l t c h i l d re n seeking refuge with mom and dad once again. In a nation plagued by a stillstruggling job market and economy, aging parents face concerns over not only their personal financial livelihoods but that of their adult children. Many parents are reopening their doors for financially struggling “boomerang kids” moving back to the nest. This poses greater financial burdens for many parents already financially struggling themselves. More young adults are moving back home now than at any time since the 1950s, said Laura Brown, professor of human development and gerontology minor coordinator at SUNY Oswego. According to a 2011 survey of young adults by the Pew Research
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Center, 11 percent of young adults aged 18-34 had moved back home in 1980, 15 percent in 2000, and 21.6 percent in 2010. Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to 18-29-year-olds as “emerging adults” who are neither still adolescents nor fully independent adults. “Many have extended their time in school, which delays full independence even further,” Brown noted. Of those young adults Pew researchers surveyed, one-third had gone back to school, and 34 percent had postponed marriage, parenthood or both. Census Bureau data from 20072009 shows the largest increase in multi-generational households for 25- to-34-year-olds. “This is very much connected to the recession which started in late 2007,” Brown said. “There were few jobs available for new college graduates.”
In addition, desperate middleaged adults who could not find work in their fields scooped up lower-paying jobs that normally would have been available for young adults, she added.
Independence costly
The boomerang kids trend is bigger than most people would even acknowledge, according to Leslie H. Tayne, founder and managing director of Tayne Law Group, P.C. She gives advice on what aging parents can do to help guide their adult children toward paths of financial independence. “It’s not just the younger generation. It’s the older generation too that is starting to live with family members because they can’t afford to be on their own,” she noted.” The reason is the tepid economy and the high cost of living independently. “To find good-paying jobs in order to live independently from