(The Washington Post) – On Wednesday, Pew Research published a soberly titled report: “More Millennials Living With Family Despite Improved Job Market.” It documented the extent to which young people, defined here as aged 18 to 34, continue to live with their parents, despite the improved economy and decreased unemployment rate of the demographic.
Pew has been tracking this data for some time, analyzing numbers collected through the Current Population Survey. Not only are millennials still living at home; they are actually more likely to live at home with their parents now than they were when the recession was in full force.
This is of particular interest to me for two reasons. First, because generational identities like “millennial” are largely made-up marketing gimmicks. And, second, because the innate earnestness of many “millennials” makes it that much more fun to tease them. (Editor’s note: Philip is old.)
Curious about how this trend looked over the long term, I reached out to the author of the Pew report, Richard Fry, and he very generously provided annual data back to 1968. That allowed me to compare the millennial generation to Baby Boomers (which is an actual defined generation), what is often called the Silent generation (the Boomers’ parents) and Generation X, the cool generation of cool people. (Editor’s note: That’s debatable.)