Surge in number of adults still at home with parents
LOS ANGELES: A steep rise in the cost of living is driving record numbers of young adults to return home to live with their parents.
More than 100,000 WA adults are still living at the “Hotel of Mum and Dad”, with the number of those who have not left home jumping by a third in just a decade amid growing cost-of-living pressures.
And among the stay-at-home adults are 37,000 people aged 30-plus and nearly 20,000 who are aged 40-plus.
The cohort includes the Boomerang Generation — those who have bounced back to Baby Boomer parents after living on their own — as well as those who have never flown the nest.
Renowned demographer Bernard Salt said parents should get used to the idea of living with adult children because it is the new norm.
“The home used to be a facility where the parents cared for a child until the end of their teen years, but now living at home until one’s mid-20s is quite normal,” he said.
But is the trend a sign of a widespread failure to launch, fuelled by immature adults who refuse to stand on their own feet, or is it an economic necessity? Mr Salt said it was primarily an economic practicality given housing costs and the lack of rental properties.
He said the rental crisis — with a vacancy rate below 1 per cent — as well as cost-of-living pressures and the high cost of a deposit required for a mortgage made it difficult for people to live independently.
It was also due to the blowout in study or training periods required these days, with young people unable to walk into careers at 16 to 21 years, as their parents did.
But for many, it was a choice rather than a necessity, as the nature of family relationships changed. Mr Salt said parents were now taking on more of a mentoring role to adult children than previous generations did, acting as a friend, or even counsellor, rather than authoritarian figure.
While critics of the divisive parenting technique claim mums and dads should never be friends to offspring, social media sites are full of posts from young adults revelling in calling a parent their best friend.
“Census data shows the peak period for mental health issues is 23 years … so living at home longer can help people get through their anxious early 20s,” Mr Salt said.
Stay-at-home adult Jessica Wilkes, 23, said living at her mother’s Mt Lawley home was the only way she could afford to buy a house, also teaming up with her brother to do so.
It took six years to save a $100,000 deposit for her own Mt Lawley abode, which she said would not have been possible had she been paying rent.
Despite now owning her own home, she said rising interest rates and cost of living pressures made it difficult to move out and live in it.
Beside the financial challenges, she also wanted to stay at her childhood home because she felt comfortable. Like most of her social circle, she planned to stay as long as her mother was happy with the arrangement. “I’m definitely not in a rush to move out at all,” said Ms Wilkes.
“It’s something where you go through phases of desperately wanting your own independence, and at the same time knowing you have a really good relationship with your mother.
“It’s easier to make it work at home, rather than having those slightly less comfortable getting-to-know-you conversations with housemates.”
Her mother, Maria Schmidt, said she was delighted to have her adult daughter at home, claiming not everyone wanted to be an empty-nester.
She said she had encouraged her children to save for their own home from a young age.
“This is my wisdom that I wanted to pass on,” she said.
Analysis shows the age for moving out is getting further pushed further back with time. The older the age group, the bigger the proportionate jump in those living with the folks over the past decade.
There has been a 33 per cent jump in those aged 25 and older living with a parent, with about 65,000 still at home in WA.
The cohort aged 30 and above has seen a 36 per cent jump over the past decade — 37,000 still with the folks — and there has been a 37.5 per cent hike in those aged 40 and above, with nearly 18,000 still at home. In the same period, WA’s population increased only 17 per cent.