Adult children living at home is international pattern causing stress

House in Palolo, a lower income area, at more than $500,000

Carol Forsloff - When Johnny or Jill come marching home, whether in America or abroad, after losing jobs or seeking to prolong school or are stressed from school debt loans, guess which bunks they take? Well, of course the top in their parent's home. Add to the burden a grandchild or two, and you have the sure-fire answer to why some seniors can't retire at 65 and why many families feel at odds with their situation and plans.

There are lots of people in this new situation, as companies have down-sized and as more and more young adults find they cannot afford to live in their own apartments.  Worse yet, many cannot buy homes and extend their time living at home in order to save for either the short-term rental or the purchase of a house.

 
In Britain it had become enough of a problem in 2010 that 40% of those adults who expected to retire at 65 now say they would not be able to do so because they have responsibilities in caring for adult children. This is a sizable chunk of older folk who can't get into those golden years so long as they have extra family members to support. A poll taken of nearly 1500 parents with children ages 18 and older revealed the fact that seniors are saying their retirement has been significantly impacted so they could not save enough for retirement.

 
Micki and Richard Snyder are retirees in the small town of Natchitoches, Louisiana. Richard does occasional work as a carpenter around Natchitoches, but work has been sporadic over the past several years. Micki retired from Federal Civil Service work and takes in foster children.  In the meantime they are supporting two teenage granddaughters and expect to see their lives devoted to them for several years to come.

 
The impact on the Snyders? Micki Snyder talked about it like this, "We took our daughter in while she waited for the chance to move overseas to marry someone.  She otherwise had no place to go right now.  When we did, of course, that increased our responsibility and took time from our personal plans.  At the same time, she was not caring for her children, so that became our responsibility as well.".

The Snyders are known in Natchitoches for helping others and doing the right thing to reach out in the community. But like many seniors, they enjoy their personal time as well but find that the combined issues of grandchildren to support and other responsibilities have caused them to delay full-time retirement. Happy they say they are, but nevertheless like other seniors with added family burdens, their personal plans in some regards have been delayed.

New York Life uses the topic to talk about retirement and how important it is to recognize the issues facing folks as they make their plans these days. The company writes about what are called "boomerang kids," who are those young adults who have moved back home. In fact they note that according to the Pew Research Center in 2009 13% of parents with grown children acknowledge adult children have moved in with them.

The trend is usually associated with difficult economic times. Monster's 2009 Annual Entry-Level Job Outlook is quoted as observing that 40% of 2008 graduates still live with their parents and in October 2009, as observed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 15.6% of young adults from 20 to 24 years of age were unemployed and likely to be dependent on others for support. Many return as well because of their increased debt, from college loans and their attempts to live a lifestyle they could not afford.

The risks, according to experts, when adult children move home aren't just financial. They include family tensions as well. One issue is that of entitlement. Like Snyder, many parents don't want their children who come back to live with them to have a sense of entitlement, as discussed in an article in the Boston Globe. The article quotes a woman named Fran Brown, who lives in Concord, as saying, " I worry about entitlement, I really do. I want to make sure my kids understand that you have to earn things.’’

Parents providing for adult children in some ways has increased generally over the past 20 years and even more so since the last economic downturn.

The Globe and Mail made some observations about this in one of its  issues several years ago. The publication reviewed the results of a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family and funded by The National Institute of Aging, which examined relationships of of 633 Philadelphia parents living in the Philadelphia are, aged 40 to 60, and their 1,384 children, aged 18 to 33. What researchers found is many grown children continue to get partial support or full support from their parents with the following statistics noted: 76 per cent got domestic help monthly, 79 per cent got money most months and 93 per cent got a check-in chat or other emotional support weekly.

 The report gave the example of a 33-year-old Toronto man who gave up taking his laundry home to his parents. This all set the stage, experts state, for the phenomenon of children now living with parents as a consequence of dealing with the recession at the time.

But has recovery from the recession changed things?  Europe has not seen the same positive economic outlook enjoyed by the United States, so the phenomenon of having adult children at home is somewhat different, although there remain many families who continue to have several generations under one roof.

In Hawaii it is common for people to have their adult children, their grandchildren and maybe even other relatives living at home in order to have the income to pay for the expensive housing in the State.  Extended families that were once the style of the Asian groups, now encompass families of all different ethnic backgrounds.

Senior publications offer the question why the trend of adult children living at home continues.  Many adults, long past their prime of life, continue to accept the burden of other family members living with them.  While many seniors, in their declining years, may need special help, younger seniors may have looked forward to travel and being on their own for the first time in many years, away from work obligations.  With more responsibility comes that loss of freedom to choose to remain independent and solitary or a couple catching up on time together.

Brown and the Snyders are those who are caught up in the economic issues and desperate times when family pressures can increase but are trying to help while making sure their children don't consider the arrangement as permanent. It is a story told in many places, as jobs become the concern for many people in both planning for retirement, as seniors want, or being independent, the goal of young adults.