Millennial Men Are More Likely To Live With Mom Than a Significant Other
You've known for a while now that very many Millennials live at home - we've got the receipts. You've also known for a while now that very many Millennials are marrying later in life, like closer to 27 to 29, than their parents did. And although I can't sit here and tell you this like it's an airtight fact, there seem to be some uniquely difficult situations that come from dating Millennial men (maybe because so many of them are softboys?).
So then, knowing what we know, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise to learn that there are more Millennial men living at home with their parents than living on their own with romantic partners. According to some new statistics from the Pew Research Center, about 35 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 34 live with a parent, compared to 28 percent of the same age group who live with a partner. From the looks of the graph from PRC, this is the first time this living situation trend has happened since the 1940s.
As you can see, this trend doesn't hold true for Millennial women, who are still ever so slightly more likely to be living with a partner than a parent. While it may seem weird to look at this data and really have to face facts - we'd rather live with someone who may/may not still do our laundry than someone we can make out with - Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a research professor of psychology at Clark University who studies this "emerging adulthood" phase, told Broadly that it's really just a continuation of a pattern that's been a long time in the works. "It's a consequence of other trends that have been going on for decades," he said.
Some of those "other trends" include the rise in marriage age, the decline of manufacturing jobs that don't require a college degree, and the tendency of young adults to prolong their college educations and get more and more degrees. And of course one other huge thing that's played a role, according to Arnett, is the feminist revolution. "[Women] are not just looking to find a husband anymore; they have career goals of their own," he told Broadly. Basically, instead of settling down and shacking up with the first cool dude who comes along, women are more commonly living alone well into their mid- to late-20s and prioritizing their careers over their love lives.
If you're worried that all these trends and patterns and living arrangements spell out a future in which literally none of us will ever get married, calm down, it'll be OK. As Arnett told Broadly, almost all young men and women are ready to get married by their late 20s.
One truly exciting thing about all this fun new Pew Research Center data is that, if you lump all Millennials of all genders together, rooming with a parent is now the most common living arrangement for young adults between 18 and 34 for the first time on record. Yep - we're living with parents at a higher rate than literally ever before. So congrats, fellow young adults under 34. We're all record breakers! I don't personally live at home anymore, but I hope that doesn't exclude me from receiving a medal or trophy or anything. I love trophies!
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