Exiting and Returning to the Parental Home for Boomerang Kids

Non-family Living Arrangements Among Young Adults in the United States

The share of young adults living in married-couple family households in the USA has declined in recent decades. Research on alternative living arrangements focuses on cohabitation among unmarried couples and parent-adult child coresidence. Less is known about trends in non-family living arrangements and the characteristics of young adults living with non-relatives. This study documents trends over time in non-family living arrangements among young adults in the USA and examines the sociodemographic profile of those living with non-relatives. Using pooled US Census and American Community Survey microdata from 1990 to 2019, the authors document age patterns in non-family living arrangements over time and use logistic regression to estimate the likelihood of living with non-family based on individual-level characteristics. Results indicate that non-family living among young adults has increased over time, and that the arrangement is associated with markers of both advantage and disadvantage. Differences across age groups explain some of these mixed results. Trends among younger groups are linked to socioeconomic patterns around family formation. Among older groups, the demographic and labor force characteristics of the foreign born and constraints of their kin availability may be driving trends. The exploratory analysis provides relevant evidence around an increasingly common living arrangement in the USA and also identifies several areas for future research on living arrangements among young adults and the implications of these trends.

'Boomerang' moves and young adults' mental well-being in the United Kingdom

BACKGROUND

In the UK and many other contemporary Western populations, attaining and maintaining residential independence is an important marker of a young person's successful transition to adulthood. However, employment precarity, partnership breakdown, and difficulties in affording housing may mean that some young adults are unable to maintain residential independence and 'boomerang' back to co-reside with their parents. Although a growing body of literature has explored how such counter-transitions affect parents' mental well-being, little is known about effects on the mental health of the young returnees and whether any such effects vary by gender or socio-economic characteristics.

DATA AND METHODS

We use data from 11 waves (2009-2020) of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) and focus on young adults aged 21-35 (N = 9714). We estimate fixed-effects models to analyse the effect of returning to the parental home on changes in young adults' mental well-being measured using scores on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Mental Component Summary (MCS) score of the Short Form Health Survey (SF-12).

RESULTS

Over the period of observation, 15% of young adults made one or more moves back to the parental home. The fixed-effects analysis showed that returning to the parental home was associated with a reduction (improvement) in GHQ score, although effects were small and did not vary by gender, employment status, partnership status, or presence of a co-resident biological child. No associations were found with changes in MCS score.

CONCLUSION

Although cross-sectional results from the UK have shown that the mental health of young adults living with parents is worse than that of young adults living independently, we found no evidence that returning to the parental home was associated with a deterioration in young adults' mental health. On the contrary, returns home were associated with a slight reduction in depressive symptoms suggesting that the benefits of parental support may outweigh possible negative impacts of inability to maintain residential independence. Further research in other settings is needed to assess the extent to which these findings reflect the UK context.

Under Different Roofs? Coresidence With Adult Children and Parents' Mental Health Across Race and Ethnicity Over Two Decades

Many U.S. parents share a household with an adult child in later life. However, the reasons parents and adult children coreside may vary over time and across family race/ethnicity, shaping relationships with parents' mental health. Using the Health and Retirement Study, this study investigates the determinants and mental health correlates of coresidence with adult children from 1998 to 2018 among White, Black, and Hispanic parents under age 65 and aged 65+. Findings show that the predictors of coresidence shifted with increasing odds that parents lived with an adult child, and several varied by parents' age group and race/ethnicity. Compared with White parents, Black and Hispanic parents were more likely to live with adult children, especially at older ages, and to indicate that they helped their children with household finances or functional limitations. Living with adult children was associated with higher depressive symptoms among White parents, and mental health was negatively related to living with adult children who were not working or were helping parents with functional limitations. The findings highlight increasing diversity among adult child-coresident parents and underscore persistent differences in the predictors and meaning of coresidence with adult children across race/ethnicity.

Mechanisms Linking High Residential Mobility to Decreased Contraceptive Use: The Importance of Method Availability

While research has demonstrated that high residential mobility has negative consequences for an array of outcomes, particularly among women and young adults, the mechanisms underlying these associations are unclear. The consequences of high residential mobility may be comprised solely of a series of short-term disruptions surrounding individual moves, or there may also be long-term, cumulative effects from repeated moves. High residential mobility may diminish access to resources as individuals move to different neighborhoods, impose a cognitive burden that impairs their ability to plan ahead, or decrease the relative power they have in their relationships to limit exposure to risk behaviors. We adjudicate between these possibilities by predicting the effects of high residential mobility on sexual intercourse and contraceptive use, the proximate determinants of pregnancy, during women's transition to adulthood. Using 2.5 years of monthly address data for 882 respondents in the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study-a random sample of young women in Genesee County, Michigan-we find that high residential mobility is associated with long-term decreases in contraceptive use. These long-term consequences are independent of the short-term effects of individual moves and attributable to diminished contraceptive access. We disentangle the effects of home-leaving, which is distinct from subsequent moves.

Family demographic processes and in-work poverty: A systematic review

This article reviews ever published quantitative evidence on in-work poverty and family demographic processes in OECD and EU-28 countries. Despite the increasing attention to in-work poverty in Europe and beyond, a comprehensive and critical review on how family demographic processes shape in-work poverty risks is still missing. In this systematic review, we first provide a quantitative review of results from analyses that estimated the association between in-work poverty and parental home leaving, union formation, marriage, parenthood, and dissolution of non-marital and marital unions. This allows us to formulate tentative conclusions about whether and in which direction family demographic processes are associated with in-work poverty. Second, we discuss in detail conceptual and methodological advances in in-work poverty research, such as longitudinal analytical designs or attempts to make in-work poverty research more sensitive to policy context, gender, and the life course. Our review highlights theoretical and methodological challenges for future studies linking in-work poverty and family demography.

Does substance use play a role in gender differences in residential independence and returns to the parental home?

Young adults are co-residing with their parents at higher rates now than in the past, and recent research has explored the correlates of both leaving and subsequently returning to the parental home. Of relevance here, females tend to leave home earlier than their male counterparts, and research finds that drinking and drug use are also linked to residential transitions. This research note explores if substance use during adolescence and young adulthood plays a role in gender differences in home-leaving and home-returning. We find that marijuana use plays a role in both home-leaving and home-returning, with adolescent females who use marijuana the most at risk for early exits from home, and marijuana using males the most at risk for home-returning.

Differential Risks: How Disability Shapes Risk in the Transition to Adulthood for Youth who Age Out of Foster Care

OBJECTIVE

This study examines how disability is associated with risk during the transition to adulthood for youth who age out of foster care and considers how experiences in the child welfare system contribute to these associations.

BACKGROUND

The transition to adulthood is important for later socioeconomic standing, health, and wellbeing. Youth who age out of foster care with disabilities may require a high level of support during this transition yet may lack support.

METHOD

This study employs linear probability models to estimate the association between disability and incarceration, homelessness, childbearing, and substance abuse between ages 17 and 21 using linked administrative data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (N=5,221).

RESULTS

Having a physical or sensory disability is associated with lower risk in the transition to adulthood. Alternatively, having an emotional or mental related disability is associated with increased risk of incarceration and homelessness, but the association with homelessness is accounted for by child welfare experiences.

CONCLUSION

Due to the importance of foster care and child protective histories in explaining some risky outcomes for youth with emotional and mental disabilities, policy makers and practitioners should include those early stages of care when seeking it improve outcomes in the transition to adulthood for youth with disabilities who age out of foster care.

Dislocated College Students and the Pandemic: Back Home Under Extraordinary Circumstances

OBJECTIVE

This research examines college students' experiences of dislocation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND

Due to governmental stay-at-home orders during the pandemic, families with "dislocated" (compelled to return home) college students would likely encounter unique stressors while also being limited in their normal ways of coping.

METHODS

Using an online survey, the current study sought to discover how diverse individual characteristics and family living situations of 323 dislocated students associated with varying homelife experiences (e.g., intrusive parenting, students making an extra effort to spend time with family), and how such experiences associated with relationship changes during the quarantine.

RESULTS

Analyses detected some differences in the students' homelife experiences based on background and living situations, especially related to being a first-year student, having been excited about returning home, and feeling accepted by parents about being home. Negative family relationship quality during the quarantine was most predicted by negative attitudes from students and parents about students being home, the student feeling less adultlike (based on treatment and own identity conception), and having low autonomy.

CONCLUSION

Returning home for quarantine was challenging for most students, and circumstances and attitudes appeared to contribute to how such challenges associated with family relationship changes.

IMPLICATIONS

Implications for practitioners and universities are discussed in regard to preparing college students and their families for similar conditions.

Intergenerational Coresidential Patterns by Young Adult's and Their Mother's Mental Health and Substance Use

Intergenerational coresidence is at a 30-year high. Studies find that economic, familial, and demographic factors shape the likelihood of this arrangement. We use NLSY79 and NLSY79YA data (2000-2014; N = 3,092) to examine how the mental health and substance use of both adult children and their mothers matter for coresidential biographies, estimating risks of moving out of and returning to their mothers' households. Adult children who drink, smoke, or have more depressive symptoms, or whose mothers drink or smoke, are more likely to leave their mother's household; adult children with more depressive symptoms and who smoke are more likely to return. Our findings show that children's and mothers' health are key determinants of coresidential patterns, suggesting that it is not just family arrangements that impact health but health that impacts family arrangements. As intergenerational coresidence increases, researchers should continue to look beyond economic, familial, and demographic determinants of coresidence to health dynamics.

Adolescent Intergenerational Relationship Dynamics and Leaving and Returning to the Parental Home

OBJECTIVE

Drawing on the life course perspective and theoretical models of intergenerational solidarity, this research explores how adolescent-parent relationships (i.e., parent-child closeness, parental attentiveness, family routines, and parenting styles) are associated with young adults' transitions to adulthood.

BACKGROUND

The study adds to the growing literature on adolescents' leaving and returning to the parental home by focusing on parent-child relationships and variations across gendered parent-child dyads.

METHOD

Based on data spanning nearly 2 decades from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = 5,201), event history analysis was employed to assess how intergenerational family dynamics correlate with young adults' risk of leaving (n = 4,519) and returning to (n = 2,749) the parental home.

RESULTS

The results indicate that, net of individual, household, and other contextual factors, parent-child closeness is significantly and positively associated with leaving the parental home. This suggests that close parent-child relationships can help launch children into adulthood. Looking at returns to the parental home, closeness becomes significant for daughters only and is moderated by parent gender. In addition, measures of parenting style indicate a significant and negative association between more-passive styles and children's return to the parental home.

CONCLUSION

These findings highlight the need to more closely consider the impact of gender and parent-child relationship dynamics in facilitating young adults' transition to adulthood.

Climate Change and Migration: New Insights from a Dynamic Model of Out-Migration and Return Migration

In popular accounts, stories of environmental refugees convey a bleak picture of the impacts of climate change on migration. Scholarly research is less conclusive, with studies finding varying effects. This paper uses an agent-based model (ABM) of land use, social networks, and household dynamics to examine how extreme floods and droughts affect migration in Northeast Thailand. The ABM explicitly models the dynamic and interactive pathways through which climate-migration relationships might operate, including coupled out and return streams. Results suggest minimal effects on out-migration but marked negative effects on return. Social networks play a pivotal role in producing these patterns. In all, the portrait of climate change and migration painted by focusing only on environmental refugees is too simple. Climate change operates on already established migration processes that are part and parcel of the life course, embedded in dynamic social networks, and incorporated in larger interactive systems where out- and return migration are integrally connected.

Timing of Departure From the Parental Home: Differences by Immigrant Generation and Parents’ Region of Origin

Drawing on immigrant adaptation and life course perspectives, this study explores reasons for differences in the timing of young adults’ departure from the parental home. We extend existing research by examining: (a) associations between home-leaving, and immigrant generation and parental region of origin, and (b) the role of parental language use in the home as a moderator of these associations. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 ( N = 5,994), we used Cox proportional hazard regressions to estimate the risk of home-leaving. Results revealed that 3+ generation immigrants are most likely to leave home, followed by second, 1.75, and 1.5 generation. Youth whose parents were from Latin America were least likely to leave compared with those with parents from other regions. Parental language spoken at home is a moderator such that, net of controls, youth with Latin American parents are less likely to leave the parental home than those with U.S.-born parents when their parents speak a language other than English at home. Findings contribute to the immigration literature by examining nuanced differences among immigrants of different generations and origins, and pointing to multiple factors that contribute to differences in the timing of the transition out of the parental home.

Crowded Nests: Parent-Adult Child Coresidence Transitions and Parental Mental Health Following the Great Recession

Although many studies have examined contemporary increases in parent-adult child coresidence, questions about what this demographic shift means for the well-being of parents remain. This article draws on insights from the life course perspective to investigate the relationship between parent-adult child coresidence and parental mental health among U.S. adults ages 50+, distinguishing between parents stably living with and without adult children and those who transitioned into or out of coresidence with an adult child. Based on analyses of the 2008 to 2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 11,277), parents with a newly coresidential adult child experienced an increase in depressive symptoms relative to their peers without coresidential adult children. Further analyses suggest that transitions to coresidence that occurred in the southern United States or involved out-of-work children were particularly depressing for parents. These findings highlight the significance of evolving intergenerational living arrangements for the well-being of older adults.

Predictors of mental health in emerging adult offspring of lesbian-parent families

Emerging adulthood is a new, distinct life stage for 18- to 29-year-olds in the United States. In the sixth wave of data collection in a longitudinal cohort study (started in 1986), predictors of mental health were examined in the emerging adult offspring within lesbian-parent parent families. The donor-conceived offspring were 25 years old. In cross-sectional analyses, we assessed whether their mental health (life satisfaction and behavioral/emotional problems) was associated with personal characteristics, family characteristics, quality of important relationships, and experiences of homophobic stigmatization. The findings revealed that the predictors of mental health in these offspring were typical of what has been previously reported on emerging adults. However, offspring who reported stigmatization because of their parents' sexual identity had higher rates of behavioral/emotional problems than those who did not.

Is an Empty Nest Best?: Coresidence With Adult Children and Parental Marital Quality Before and After the Great Recession

Objectives

Since the Great Recession, the proportion of young adults living with their parents has risen steadily in the United States. Research on coresidence with adult children and parental marital quality is mixed, but marital quality may suffer if children coreside under certain circumstances. When coresidence signifies a deviation from normative expectations, it may be a source of stress in parents' marriages. Further, living with adult children who are suffering problems may be especially detrimental to parental marital quality.

Method

Middle-aged parents (N = 287; mean age = 50.65) completed measures of marital quality, child problems, and coresidence at 2 time points, at the onset of the Great Recession in 2008 and again in 2013.

Results

Regression analyses estimating marital quality from coresidence status revealed that coresidence with a child was associated with lower parental marital quality in 2008, but not in 2013 (when it may be considered more normative to have adult children living in the home). Additional analyses showed living with a child who was suffering problems was associated with lower marital quality in 2013.

Discussion

These findings suggest that coresidence may be detrimental to marital quality, but perhaps only when coresidence is nonnormative or when coresidence co-occurs with child problems.

Adult Children Living With Aging Parents: The Association Between Income and Parental Affect

This study examined the moderating effect of parental income on the association between parent-child coresidence and parental affect. Secondary analysis was conducted with data from the ORANJ BOWL panel, a representative sample of adults in New Jersey, aged 50 to 74 years ( N = 5,688). Results indicated that income had a significant moderating effect on the association between the adult child's residential status and parents' positive and negative affect. Among parents with coresident adult children, an observed decline in positive affect and rise in negative affect were amplified as parental income level increased, suggesting differential strains on parental well-being across income levels.

Sharing the Burden of the Transition to Adulthood: African American Young Adults' Transition Challenges and Their Mothers' Health Risk

For many African American youth, the joint influences of economic and racial marginalization render the transition to stable adult roles challenging. We have gained much insight into how these challenges affect future life chances, yet we lack an understanding of what these challenges mean in the context of linked lives. Drawing on a life course framework, this study examines how young African Americans' experiences across a variety of salient domains during the transition to adulthood affect their mothers' health. Results suggest that stressors experienced by African Americans during the transition to adulthood (e.g., unemployment, troubled romantic relationships, arrest) heighten their mothers' cumulative biological risk for chronic diseases, or allostatic load, and reduce subjective health. These results suggest that the toll of an increasingly tenuous and uncertain transition to adulthood extends beyond young people to their parents. Hence, increased public investments during this transition may not only reduce inequality and improve life chances for young people themselves, but may also enhance healthy aging by relieving the heavy burden on parents to help their children navigate this transition.

Family Structure and Early Home Leaving: A Mediation Analysis

An ample body of research has shown that young adults from non-intact families are more likely to leave the parental home at an early age than young adults from intact families. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. We drew on prospective longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) to examine why young adults from non-intact families are more likely to leave home early. Based on the feathered nest hypothesis, it was expected that young adults from non-intact families are pushed out of the parental home because of a lack in economic, social, and community resources. Moreover, it was expected that young adults from non-intact families are pulled toward independent living at a younger age because they have a partner and are employed earlier in life. We employed discrete-time event history models and used the KHB method to test relative weights of the mediators. The mediators explained 16% (women) and 22% (men) of the effect of living in a stepfamily, and 50% (women) and 37% (men) of the effect of living in a single-mother family. Economic resources were the main mediator for the effect of living in a single-mother family on early home leaving. For women, mother's life satisfaction and housing conditions significantly explained differences in early home leaving between single-mother and intact families. For men, residential mobility significantly mediated the effect of family structure on early home leaving.

The role of residential mobility in reproducing socioeconomic stratification during the transition to adulthood

OBJECTIVE

This study assesses whether frequency of residential mobility plays a role in the reproduction of socioeconomic inequality during the transition to adulthood based on two criteria: (1) selection – is there socioeconomic sorting into residential trajectories? – and (2) lack of moderation – is this sorting irreducible to other life events that prompt moves (e.g., changes in employment status)?

METHODS

I use two and a half years of monthly address data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life data set, a sample of 18- and 19-year-old young women in a Michigan county. As an improvement upon previous measures of residential mobility, I use group-based trajectory analysis to categorize young women into residential trajectory groups. I then conduct a series of nested logistic regressions to predict membership in residential trajectory groups and a decomposition analysis to determine whether rapid movers are exposed to more life events (e.g., entering/exiting employment) or are simply more sensitive to moving in the face of life events compared to gradual movers.

RESULTS

Rapid moving is associated with low socioeconomic status. Rapid movers experience similar family formation, employment, and academic changes as gradual movers but are more likely to move when faced with these life events.

CONCLUSIONS

High residential mobility is a phenomenon among early home-leavers as part of an accelerated and underfunded transition to adulthood rather than a reflection of the upward socioeconomic mobility of college students.

CONTRIBUTION

High residential mobility is not simply a neutral or normative aspect of the transition to adulthood but rather part of the process of reproducing socioeconomic stratification.

Ethnic Differences in Returning Home: Explanations From a Life Course Perspective

Ethnic differences in leaving and returning home may reflect varying cultural norms regarding intergenerational coresidence, but also differences in transitions in linked domains, for example, employment and partnership transitions. This study uses Dutch population register data to compare returning home among second-generation Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese, and Antilleans with native Dutch who had left the parental home between age 16 and 28 in the period 1999 to 2011 (N = 194,020). All second-generation groups were found to be more likely to return home than native Dutch. A large part of these differences was related to the timing and occurrence of other key events in the life course, such as age at leaving home and partnership dissolution. Although the impact of partnership dissolution on returning home was found to be strong among all origin groups, it was less pronounced among second-generation youth, particularly Turks and Moroccans, than native Dutch youth. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.

A Dyadic Examination of Marital Quality at the Empty-Nest Phase

This study aims to achieve a better understanding of the later stages of the family life cycle by exploring couples' marital quality during the empty-nest years of their relationships, using the actor–partner interdependence mediation model. The empty nest is the family stage that begins with the departure of children from home. In the hypothesized model of marital quality, husbands' and wives' satisfaction at having raised successful children serve as predictor variables, whereas their levels of perceived stress act as mediators. A sample of 344 participants, forming 172 heterosexual couples, participated in the study. The results of path analyses indicated that the model provided an acceptable fit for the data. Closer examination suggested that wives' and husbands' perceived stress fully mediate the relationships between husbands' tendency to view their children as successful adults and both spouses' marital quality. The article discusses interdependence and gender differences between spouses concerning their empty-nest experience.

Into the Red and Back to the Nest? Student Debt, College Completion, and Returning to the Parental Home among Young Adults

Rising student debt has sparked concerns about its impact on the transition to adulthood. In this paper, we examine the claim that student debt is leading to a rise in "boomeranging", or returning home, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort and discrete time event history models. We have four findings. First, student loan debt is not associated with boomeranging in the complete sample. However, we find that the association differs by race, such that the link between student debt and returning home is stronger for black than white youth. Third, degree completion is a strong predictor of returning home, whereby those who fail to attain a degree have an increased risk of boomeranging. Fourth, young adult role transitions and socioeconomic well-being are associated with boomeranging. Findings suggest that rising debt has created new risks, and may reproduce social inequalities in the transition to adulthood.

PARENTAL ASSISTANCE, NEGATIVE LIFE EVENTS, AND ATTAINMENT DURING THE TRANSITION TO ADULTHOOD

Responding to the longer and more variable transition to adulthood, parents are stepping in to help their young adult children. Little is known, however, about the extent to which parental support promotes success, and whether parental support has different effects for young adult sons and daughters. Using longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study, we find that parental scaffolding assistance for educational expenses predicts college graduation for both men and women. Negative life events experienced during the transition to adulthood are associated with lower earnings by the early 30s, although there is some variation by type of event. More frequent parental support during times of need does not predict long-term economic attainment for sons or daughters.

Boomerang families and failure-to-launch: Commentary on adult children living at home

With a shifting economic climate and changes in social norms, young adults are increasingly reported to be living with their parents, either through delayed launch or by launch and return. For young adults grappling with financial and domestic independence, the family home can represent a safe haven; however, living with parents can also pose a threat to autonomy and self-image as they strive for adult status. Parents, on the other hand, are often beleaguered by the economic and emotional demands of their dependent adult children and struggle to maintain their own independence. The roles and expectations of both parties need to be redefined in order to achieve optimal household functioning.