About a third of all millennials live at home and rely on their parents financially, a new report issued by the Census Bureau showed.
Younger Americans are also putting off marriage, having a child and home-buying – considered the gateways to adulthood four decades ago – as they pursue education and job opportunities, the report by demographer Jonathan Vespa found.
According to the survey, young women are much more likely to attain a college degree and a full-time job today than they were in 1976, and young men are only slightly more likely to have attained a higher education and slightly less likely to have a job.
The survey also found:
- In 2005, only 25 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 lived with their parents; today, that number is 34 percent. The number of young Americans living independently of their parents stands at 40.7 percent, down more than 10 percentage points from a decade ago.
- Today, more people between the ages of 18 and 34 live with their parents, 22.9 million, than live with a spouse, 19.9 million. In 1975, 31.9 percent lived with a spouse; while just 14.7 million lived with their parents.
- Home ownership rates have plummeted: In 1975, almost 52 percent of those between 25 and 34 owned their own home. Today, just 28.8 percent do.
- In 1976, 85 percent of women and 75 percent of men had been married by age 29. Today, only 46 percent of women and 32 percent of men said they were married before they turned 30. Also, women between the ages of 20 and 24 are now more likely to have a child, 25 percent, than to have been married, 17 percent.
"Young adults are not necessarily giving up on marriage; they are waiting longer," Vespa wrote.
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