By Evan Horowitz GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 23, 2017
You can’t blame the economy — not anymore. Young adults continue to move back home with their parents, even though the United States has enjoyed seven straight years of economic growth, pushing the unemployment rate below 5 percent.
This was supposed to be a temporary phenomenon, a short-term rush for shelter set off by the financial crisis of 2007-2009. But it just keeps going. Every year, more and more 25-to-34-year-olds turn up in their parents’ houses, right through to 2016.
Why has living at home become so voguish among millennials? Blame high housing costs. Blame declining marriage rates. And, also, blame the parents.
Start with the housing costs, which have become a major impediment to independence. A recent analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that housing really is less affordable for today’s young adults than it was for their peers 20 years ago — a key reason they’ve been slower to move out.