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As Recession Holds, Generations Move In Together

Friday, October 19, 2012 16:00

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(Before It's News)

According to the Pew Research Center, the
recession has helped fuel the largest increase in the number of Americans
living in multi-generational households in modern history. From 2007 to 2009,
the total spiked from 46.5 million to 51.4 million.

The poverty rate among people in
multi-generational households is substantially smaller than for those in other
households—11.5% vs. 14.6% in 2009, according to the new Pew Research Center
analysis of Census Bureau data.

Slightly more than a third of
multi-generational households (4.2 million) encompassed three or more generations, for example, a householder, adult child and grandchild. The
remaining multi-generational households, about 857,000, consist of two skipped
generations—a grandparent and a grandchild.

According to Pew, the ability to pool
financial resources is an advantage of multi-generational living, but it comes
with a trade-off. Multi-generational households are relatively large—an average
of 4.3 residents, compared with 2.4 in other households.

Key findings of the report include:

The number of Americans living
in multi-generational households increased 4.9 million from 2007 to 2009.
By contrast, the number of people in other households rose by only
333,000.
The number of young adults
(ages 25 to 34) in multi-generational households increased to 8.7 million
in 2009 from 7.4 million in 2007. Both the numerical growth (1.3 million
people) and the percentage increase it represents (16.8%) were larger than
for any other age group.
The most likely groups to live
in multi-generational households are Asians (25.8% in 2009), blacks
(23.7%) and Hispanics (23.4%). The share among whites was much lower
(13.1%).
In 2009, 16.2% of foreign-born
heads of household and 9.6% of native-born heads of household lived in
multi-generational households.
After adjusting to a household
size of three, the median income for multi-generational households was
$57,533 in 2009, or 2% less than the $59,002 median income for other
households.