However, compared to the west, we have little to no privacy. We are raised to not expect much privacy in the first place so we don't really miss it. Kids do NOT get a room of their own - never ever - they bunk with siblings. I was around 15 when I got a room of my 'own'. There's no pressure to move out once you grow up - parents would do their best to KEEP you home in fact. I would not have had to 'move out' if my college was not 200 km away. There's one big trade off with the whole set up though - no sex till you get married ;)

When I "left home" at 16 upon completing school and going to university, it couldn't have been less of an issue - as it was no different to going back to school.

I'm sure my family is an extreme example, but there's definitely a culture in the west, particularly among elites, where getting shot of your kids as soon as possible is highly desirable.

I have a perfectly ok relationship with each of them - see each once every few years, we're friendly and civil - but I've never really viewed them as parents - those would have been my aupairs and then the regimented institution of public school.

Children should be loved and cherished, not abandoned.

I moved out quite early on myself, and my relationship with my parents is quite fine. (From the US for context)

I presume no such thing. Although any feelings a six year old has of feeling being loved and cherished are greatly enhanced by living together with their parent(s). That being said, what I do consider abandonment is being raised by au pairs and shipped off to boarding school by age six.

> I moved out quite early on myself, and my relationship with my parents is quite fine. (From the US for context)

Moving out of your own free will is quite different from being put into boarding school at age six.

I'm glad to say that my dad seems to be getting it right the second time around, with wife 2.0, which underscores my upbringing being culturally rather than idiopathically driven - in the culture in which they lived, kids were there to convey status, and not much else.

Honestly, my family dynamic is all sorts of weird to most, but not unfamiliar to many who shared a parallel experience with me.

I wish people didn't feel obligated to have children if they know they don't want children or know they aren't up to doing it properly. It's not like accidents can't be "fixed".

This isn't directly aimed at you, I'm sure you are a wonderful person and are happy about this accident. I just feel children should not be had as status symbols or out of obligation.

> To say we were unloved would be wrong - but we were inconvenient, and never allowed to forget it.

Loved, but inconvenient. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that one :) I guess that's cognitive dissonance.

Regardless, all the best. Thanks for sharing.

Glad it works for you, but that has got to be the third circle of my personal hell.

> 'Being alone' is seldom a reason for a depressed Indian - the family is always there.

That's nice. Some European countries are exactly the opposite. It's my hypothesis that this is the cause for many suicides, despite otherwise stellar living standards.

Here, here. Not only do I not live with parents, friends or anyone else. The slowly but steadily losing side of a current raging personal debate in my head is that one day I should share my life with a significant other and perhaps have a family of my own. That idea is on the ropes but I'm not quite ready to close that door completely, but I'm real close to calling the fight and declaring a winner.

Further, I have been going longer between replies to messages from friends. If they need to find me, they will know where to go. We can only maintain X number of relationships. I would rather that list include people in my pro network and an inner circle of friends and family.

If you can handle being alone. I feel that's a superpower. Though there are many benefits to for sharing your life with an SO. I suppose it's a trade-off.

Here it's very much not cultural. Youth unemployment is 50% and people are dirt poor.

I make about the same income he does... but in living together we can do so much better. There's always someone excited to make dinner every night.

We get to spend a lot of time together, and even though it's hard sometimes, and requires more emotional work, I think we've all grown from it. We buy a lot of groceries, and keep things clean. This summer I rebuilt some of our pantry space. My dad is really awesome though... He's super supportive, we smoke weed together, play LOL, work on projects around the house, go hunting, butcher our own animals, raise chickens.

My girlfriend and I have our own room, and we've been using the money saved to build a tiny house on a carhauler trailer. So we may not live with him forever, but I think all of our lives have been enriched a lot being together.

It's hard sometimes too, and some days I feel really angry with him. But some days I feel angry with my girlfriend too =) but also i still love them, and working through those things has only made me stronger

I can't even entertain the idea of not having my own privacy and my own place to do exactly what I want, when I want how I want.

I'm already getting anxious about the holidays and spending a few days with family. It's so exhausting, all that useless meaningless chatter etc. Makes one so weary.

I feel the Western model is better.

To a spouse chosen by your parents, correct?

Even in arranged marriages in the big cities both parties usually have some veto power; parents don't (usually) just unilaterally say "You're marrying him/her and that's that" because that's not a happy start to any marriage. The guy or girl is shown pictures and basic info (height, education, job etc.) about potential candidates from a shortlist (which parents get from a marriage bureau) and they pick out a few they might be interested in. It's pretty much a stale joke by now that any unmarried Indian engineer working abroad is going to be bombarded with pictures of girls by his parents when he visits India.

The guy or girl might meet a few different potential partners before making a decision. It often runs like parental-supervised dating (think of the scene in The Godfather, with the grandmothers following a few paces behind Michael Corleone and the Sicilian woman he's courting). The couple can get to know each other reasonably well before the wedding if the engagement is a few months long.

In the rural areas (i.e. most of the country) traditional arranged marriages probably still dominate though. Even there, the winds of change are a-blowin'.

Yeah, it's almost like we have radically different cultures.

She is also in graduate school online for a Master of Library Science (MLS). She wants to be a librarian and you pretty much need an MLS to become a librarian. Her part time income mostly goes just to pay for graduate school.

Her sister graduated high school 2016 and is taking a gap year as an AmeriCorp Vista employee working with center city schools on after school STEM programs from FIRST Robotics. She will go to college fall 2017 at Olin College of Engineering.

We suspect that the oldest will live with us for many years and her mom and I are fine with that. Expensive liberal arts degrees don't often pay well. I think that situation is going to catch up with liberal arts colleges very soon.

I like having her around. She does some chores and provides some company to us. But mostly she stays to herself studying or reading. If you had told me 10 years ago that she would be living with us after college and that we would be okay with that, I would have thought you crazy.

Her younger sister will get an engineering degree and we will only see here once and awhile after that. We are okay with that also, though we will miss her so much.

We mostly have younger friends so they are not yet at a place where their older children can be living at home.

- Wanted to be a librarian

- Studied to be a librarian

- Graduated school to be a librarian

- Got a job as a librarian

- Doesn't make enough to live on her own and pay the cost of her education to be a librarian

And this isn't isolated to librarians, it's just a very instructive example. How is it we now have entire classes of jobs where the education they require for that job now puts you in such a degree of debt that you have to live off of your parents? We need librarians, no? We want to make sure we still have those? We have to be willing to pay for them.

Undergraduate degree in sociology and a minor in anthropology. BA in sociology is not very employable but is the most common undergraduate degree for librarians.

Once the affordable care act (ObamaCare) was made into law the library (local public library) started making most non-librarian jobs part time so they don't have to provide health insurance. So today she works circulation but is not a librarian.

She has no college debt because she got a free education. I work at the college and they pay full tuition for some staff and faculty children. Her education would not have been worth the greater than $200,000 retail cost of her degree. We are very lucky to have her college paid for.

She will end up paying for maybe 80% of her graduate degree herself and take student loans out for the last semester.

She puts money aside in her roth IRA. We are lucky she is cheap and sees the value in saving for retirement. I guess her mom and I did something right.

Her mom and I both work for colleges. Her mom works for a public four year school and I work for a private liberal arts college. We see in both that many graduates are not earning what they claim the graduates can earn. As I said in my original post that this will catch up in Liberal Arts (and really non-technical) degreed students.

Her younger sister will be going to an engineering school where the graduates are earning, on average, 25% more right out of school than other engineering schools. We are hopeful she can avoid automation job collapse and maybe participate in the automation side of this phenomenon. "If you can't beat them then join them."

I'm not the best at selling the points because I went to a technical public university and got a BS and a MS in Chemistry and Environmental Engineers. Today I am a self taught CS guy.

I guess what I am saying is I don't fully buy into the Liberal Arts education selling points. My eldest doesn't buy into it as well. Of course the free education makes all the difference.

Typical selling points go like: http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/04/28/why-...

As a taxpayer, I'm happy to support liberal arts even if it doesn't lead to economic growth. But you can't convince me that it should cost $200k to get a degree in it; that's just bananas. There's no way it costs that much to provide that service (even with a healthy profit margin on top). They must be subsidizing other costs with that money.

On a related note, I think the American model of charging per-credit-unit, regardless of what you study, is illogical (maybe it's not the same at all universities). It might make things easier for the bursar's office but it just doesn't compute that a credit hour of an aerospace engineering course (with all that expensive lab equipment) should cost the same as a credit hour of American poetry. Or that a 200-student introductory chemistry class costs the same as an advanced 20-student organic chemistry class.

College usually meant everybody would study the same subjects. The specialization of degrees is a relatively new innovation by way of 19th century German institutions adapting to industrialization.

The problem is that we treat colleges as "skill mills," where we expect to go in, like raw materials into a machine, and emerge as an employable middle-class worker. Not all degrees or programs are suited for employment. Some colleges alleviate the problem somewhat by requiring paid co-ops as a part of a degree, but that is only one side of the problem.

Time was that the employer would teach the job skills on the job. There was an expectation of trust and loyalty on both sides which agreed that as long as the employee stuck with the employer, the employer would train and protect the employee.

This model has been successfully replicated time and time again across the world, from the guilds of the Middle Ages, to the salaryman culture of modern Japan.

College isn't everything.

The sad fact is that most people need a job to live in the world. And increasingly jobs are more scarce for many majors and not paying as well at they did historically. Hence more children are living beyond college with their parents. And then we have the automation threat to jobs...

I believe that there are many great life skills that are learned in college. Liberal Arts colleges think they have a lock on critical thinking skills and problem solving but I know a lot of people with technical degrees (chemistry, engineering,...) that have critical thinking and problem solving skills.

I think knowing history is also useful and a good thing. But as a parent I first and foremost want my kids to be able to live financially independently. It takes getting a job to do so. I haven't been able to reconcile that successfully in my meager brain with getting a college education regardless of employment.

Plus employee / employer trust is no longer a reality.

I mean, who the hell has 200k to spend "for fun" at a liberal arts college?

Even schools that are mid to low tier are charging a lot for a 4 year education. I suspect that many of the low tier and some mid tier schools will go out of business in the next 5 to ten years. Some schools have gone under already. Getting alumni to donate is getting harder for raising money and schools rely on not just the fees they charge but also donations[0].

This site will allow you to see private versus public schools and has estimates for fees and room and board (living expenses). Just page through a few pages and you will see that for private schools most schools add up to more than $30,000 / year and many more than $40,000. Many the schools you will not recognize their names. The cost of college is out-of-control.

Some private schools many are "need based". What that means is that if your effective family contribution (FASFA Calculation [1]) is less than the estimated cost of attendance [2,3,4] then the school will provide financial aid for the difference.

The financial aid may be in the form of tax credits, student debt, grants (like a scholarship), scholarships, exchange for student employment and more. Many aid packages are a mix. Schools that load up students with debt are doing a very bad service to the student, their families and society.

0: http://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=M...

1: https://fafsa.ed.gov/

2: http://www.olin.edu/admission/costs/cost-of-attendance/

3: http://financialaid.richmond.edu/prospective/cost.html

4: https://www.elon.edu/e/admissions/undergraduate/financial-ai...

Not to mention that in general an educated populace is better at making decisions than an uneducated one, so even a moderately educated Starbucks barista contributes more to our society than an uneducated one, even if those contributions aren't financial.

People can do all the "arts" they like once they are able to actually earn a living first. Anything else is just not sustainable.

In my mind it's sort of like buying a Rolls Royce, there are plenty of other cars that can move you, but a Rolls is something relatively unique and very high quality. At least, that's how it goes in theory.

Get an MBA.

It worked for a relative of mine: she went from Liberal Arts to Director of Marketing for a tech firm.

Depending on where you live, an MBA may take her into a completely different direction.

Good luck but it does not seem like any of you all in your family need it.

She got 4 years of experience in the college library doing digital library work (scanning, tagging, metadata, etc.). We are hopeful this will sustain her once she is a librarian for ten or more years. Part of this is we notice in our little world that non-digital librarians don't want to learn digital library skills. Their loss her gain.

Wow this world is complicated.

I just find it interesting that post graduate education is now required in many fields. I suspect it's partly due to demand for a limited number of positions but also due to shifts in expectations about on the job training and entry level positions. I also suspect that the evolution of hiring and professional HR staff has some role in it.

And this is not simply "humanities pay less". There are a lot of "different" professions that can evolve and become good (high-paying) positions. Even librarian studies can go to become an archivist, managing some private collection, etc.

But requiring an overpriced Master degree for a librarian position IS A SCAM. And getting yourself into a romanticized position inside a clique is not a good career movement.

People moving to LA and waiting tables until they get a movie part looks like a more viable career path than that

Another avenue to pursue this discussion from is the % of income allocated to retirement savings. I have a sneaky suspicious most of my peers are saving less for retirement than the same demographic 10, 20, 30 years ago.

What happens in a few decades when all these adults who lived with their parents and hardly saved for retirement due to lower salaries and student loans are too old to work? It seems our tax dollars will be supporting them and this looks like a big problem. Curious what others think or if I am looking at this problem from the wrong perspective.

I think you're right to be concerned. Not being able to strike out on your own delays family formation, which leads to some attrition of people who never have children for financial reasons. This decreases the birthrate and then on top of the working generation supporting members within its own cohort, they also have to support an older generation of retirees with an ever rising dependency ratio. It's a negative feedback loop that countries like Japan, Germany, and Italy are stuck in.

Both the education and housing problems can be solved. Education can be automated and amateurized using technology, and more housing can be built. Both of these would do a lot to decrease youth debt loads. Medical price inflation is the tougher problem but is less pressing for young people. Eventually we will be old though and then it will hit like a ton of bricks for those unlucky enough to have not accumulated wealth.

"Among Gen Xers who have exceeded their parents’ income, those with college degrees are less likely to surpass their parents’ wealth, mostly due to student loan debt."

Me? Student loan debt set me back years, crippling housing costs, and a crappy 401(k) that is probably worth around what I put into it due to multiple deep recessions during my prime working years. I can't even begin to imagine how bad it is for you under-30s!

This is not sustainable. All the value captured through productivity increases is being captured by shareholders and asset owners now rather than the working class.

By 34 they owned a huge house in the country, several large holiday homes abroad, three cars, private education for the kids, first class flights (for them - I always flew alone to school, economy), motorbikes, you name it.

At the same age, I've done very well for myself compared to my cohort - I own a basement flat and a one bedroom cottage with no roof up a mountain, and have savings - this was from being a director and founder of a 50-ish person business with £MM turnover. I am incredibly concerned for the rest of this generation - if I feel insecure - how does someone renting on a zero-hour contract feel?!?

Part of the myriad resasons I quit my business to wander the world is that I'm done paying for the lavish lifestyles our ancestors enjoyed. Bluntly, it isn't fair, and I'm fed up, and I'm not taking it any more.

That's the issue with this thread: it's only first world perspective, about the time when the difference in income between countries around the globe was completely radical. With globalisation, it jist evens out.

It's not that hard, you put 23k/yr total in the roth IRA & Roth 401k in VFIAX. I do not work in the tech industry anymore and am still doing this, just stop eating out, live cheap.

Compound this over 40-45 years and you and I are multimillionares.

As for the rest, asking someone to live cheap until they're 65, as a way to compensate for systemic malfunction, ehh...nope, let's get political and fix the system.

Then the never-ending wars came. And, many of these people now have serious injuries and most have PTSD. They came back changed.

Now, I would never let a relative join the armed forces. Maybe it was a heroic thing to do at one point; I don't know. But, nowadays they're exploited and used carelessly for missions of dubious purpose.

While I can only speak from my own experience, many of my friends and colleagues (EE) have left the country already. There are lots of good arguments on both sides and plenty of stories to each end. That said, it comes to this, the people in my generation with real skill are leaving. Not all of them, but enough that it's becoming noticeable. Maybe it's always been this way, maybe not, needless to say my sample size is low so draw conclusions at your own risk. That's just my two cents on it (in reference to what it is like for under-30's).

They still have student debt, but with practically no interest adjusted for inflation, and they didn't have to pay for university. They won't be spending their future worrying about their loans.

Grow up in a country with ~30% income tax and ~25% VAT, get universal healthcare and free education, then emigrate and take a job and pay (less) taxes in another country where working actually makes you money.

That's how living in a poor country feels. You still have good enough institutions and human capital to turn things around, but if you wait for too long, those will be gone.

Increasing automation is going to make unskilled labor a huge liability for countries. This is one reason I don't think some of the anti-immigrant position of many Americans (and Europeans) is unwarranted. Every country should want highly skilled labor to help improve their current account, but unskilled labor is huge future liability. There is already a huge surplus of domestic unskilled labor in developed countries. Allowing unskilled labor to increase through immigration is only going to exacerbate the problem.

(meanwhile lots of the US runs on cheap labor)

personally i think in today's world in which 0.1% owns pretty much everything or at least controls ownership of everything, it's an unavoidable eventuality, but it's not going to be an easy process of getting there.

These are indeed the kind of jobs that were lost to automation. Truly unskilled labor was replaced not by robots but by cheaper unskilled labor of other people.

That does require us to overhaul the tax system so that income isn't taxed twice when it is paid directly from one person to another.

The 0.1% and their media naturally aren't going to blame themselves, or their trade agreements, or their lobbyists, or their wall street.

  f(x) = 500 / (1-x)

This yields 88.8% being owned by the richest 20% when using 1mio slices (the only reason I'm not trying to integrate symbolically is that I'm too lazy to try to revive my college math skills).

This is strikingly close to the 84% that the article claims is reality.

So, what's wrong with this then now?

The journalist writes that it "should" be different but doesn't provide for an explanation that says why the distribution should be following a different mathematical formula (and which).

Who is being stupid here, me or the journalist?

If you think that having wealth should be rewarded more than creating wealth then nothing I guess.

Geometrically increasing wealth is caused by the "compound interest effect" where wealth begets wealth.

In other words, it's a signal that creating wealth is steadily diminishing in importance while owning it is increasing in importance.

To be clear, I'm poor, i.e. I've failed both at wealth creation and ownership so far. I'll think about how (much) wealth creation can 'distort' the geometric formula.

Simple - they die early... barring a massive electoral shift in governance priorities.

SSI and SNAP have really high velocity. For one thing, velocity is a good thing on its own. For another, they're both composed of everybody's favorite convenient social fiction - money. The both run around 5% of GDP. So say that doubles.

People not working is only actually a problem if the overall economy experiences something akin to opportunity loss from them not doing anything. The map is not the territory and the books are not the company.

Remote work from home, where you are ensconced in your isolation box, is gross, too; as a consultant, I have a home office and I spend most of my time out of it.

(Mind, I have considered buying something in a rural area--but that's effectively a retreat, not a home. Homes are a by-and-large a pipe dream for people who are under 30 right now unless they want crushing commutes or nothingvilles.)

I actually love going on long walks, so the thought of walking a half hour to buy groceries if I don't buy a car seems ok.

I've spent the last decade or so in San Francisco, and none of the local scenes really attract me. There used to be some cool artists around, but a lot of them got priced out. Maybe some other city has a more thriving cultural life, but San Francisco's isn't doing anything for me. I just have to figure out where to move.

Well, I hope that we both manage to figure out a way of life that is good for us.

What you're describing in terms of collapsibility, zero space, and cultural lifelessness is why I have avoided San Francisco like the plague, but San Francisco isn't like most urban areas--when asked why I refused a job with a startup out there I responded with something very similar to what you're saying here. =) I live in the Boston area; the city I live in is on the subway line, but isn't Boston proper.

I live on the top floor of an apartment building; my place is about 1200 square feet. I regularly sleep an off-kilter schedule. My neighbors like me, and me being up at 3AM doesn't seem to bother the downstairs neighbors seeing as how we hang out once a week or so.

Rural areas are fine if that's your thing, don't get me wrong. But there's a lot that you can't get in those areas (and I've spent plenty of time in them) at all.

I too work from home, and the difference is so stark, I can't imagine ever living in a less dense neighborhood again. I haven't gotten in my car in a week. Not going back.

The thing that prevents new construction in many areas is laws designed to "preserve the character of the neighborhood". Homeowners/investors have an incentive to push for these laws to keep housing prices high. However, if they actually own a diversified asset that can grow with new construction by adding new properties, then that incentive is reduced.

Of course, we should still train general life autonomy, and not promote being able-but-incapable shut-ins, but being able to venture into housing (or back out of it if things go really pear-shaped) should be done flexibly. The family unit as a reciprocating life cushion is a very positive thing to maintain. If you're on the receiving end of this cushion, make sure you're doing your part for your parents and/or extended household, too.

I don't care that economists and real estate investors bemoan the shrinking population of those able to buy houses. When times are financially tough, people need to pool together, not overextend themselves. Overall statistics about economic recovery also don't evenly represent all families.

I remember reading that José María Olazábal (one of the best professional golfers in the 90's, with millions of dollars in earnings) was still living with his parents into his early 40's (though to be fair, he was traveling for half the year on tour).

I often think that the "move out from home" pressure is a ploy by the real estate industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Olaz%C3%A...

Privacy of course suffers, but then again I with multiple kids like a lot of US households have, there isn't that much privacy anyway.

-----------------------------------------------------------

> I often think that the "move out from home" pressure is a ploy by the real estate industry.

I think it's any commercial entity, right? When you move out of your parents' house, now you collectively have to pay/buy

- Extra rent

- Extra money for furnishing

- Probably more money for transport (could have carpooled with family or neighbors)

- More money for groceries (living on your own you will likely waste more groceries)

- Extra money for insurance (since it isn't a family pool)

etc.

So you're right, but possibly underestimating it. There is a lot of vested interest in convincing young people that living with their parents somehow makes them "losers" etc.

Clearly not. Any money you save by staying at your parent's home will be spent in other commercial entities. Even people who save eventually spend it. Conversely, all that cash going to landlords, grocers, insurance, etc is not being spent on something else.

Sure, but I'd rather be in a house with extended family than with roommates.

So are you referring to all of Italy or are you saying this doesn't apply to Sicily (or other islands)?

"Italy's boot" here corresponds to this Southern Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Italy

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/15/world/north-south-divide-i...

Look at how Harry Truman lived. My uncles all lived at home until they moved, either for military service or because they got married. Age range roughly 1915 to around 1945 or so.

People lived in boarding houses if they didn't have a family.

My sister has a "boomerang" Millenial; the house is probably 3-4000 sq feet and the "kids suite" upstairs is probably 1200 sq ft. or so.

I'm not sure about that. Parents siphoning their children's (or children's spouses') "excess" income as a substitute for emergency and retirement savings seems pretty destructive. Rather than a self-perpetuating cycle of wealth transfer forward (i.e. paying for college), children start out less advantaged and, once they have earning power later in life, are expected to contribute it backwards. Of course, what you are expected to "reciprocate" here is not usually free housing as an adult, but your upbringing in general.

I'm very grateful that my parents have been fiscally responsible, and have taught me to do the same. While I will of course take care of them as medical situations arise (as they're currently doing with their parents), I very much appreciate that we're not in a tradition of tithing to our elders like so many other families seem to be. I can only hope that my eventual spouse would feel the same way. I certainly would not expect it from my children. But if my parents demanded it, then I'd have no choice but to demand it.

Taking care of children and the elderly are of course one-sided cases, but when two generations are both adults (pre-elderly parents, adult children), and among siblings, a healthy relationship and taking care of each other goes a long way in times of struggle on otherwise equal footing.

The reciprocation comes later in life, when parents aren't able to be self sufficient anymore.

Sadly I think he is right.

Just your rent and electric bill will be 75%

Young rich people are doing just fine.

[0] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-20/five-facts-which-show-...

Either young people need to be okay not living in cities, or governments need to encourage more housing to be built in cities. But, instead, young people want urban living and municipalities are only increasing restrictions on building new units. Obviously in this senario prices will go up, it's basic supply and demand.

Note: I am a young person living in a city.

I think most young people are trying to go where the jobs are more than anything.

Houses have to go somewhere. Or should people just be stuck spending hours commuting?

But that, that's just a pipe dream.

Nobody in a software engineering job should have to live with parents for financial reasons. I appreciate OP's dedication, but they should be able to save up an emergency fund pretty quickly and move into their own (small) apartment.

If you're interested in saving for the longer term, I recommend checking out r/financialindependence.

That said, this is purely speculation. I have a 10 minute commute by subway+walking.

Or would you not be able to go back once you left?

It's there primarily for people who need to move because of work, and usually the employer who is relocating them would reimburse it. So, you could probably ask something like, "what if I get transferred to a different office before 12 months is up?"

That will signal some risk that the landlord will have to find a new tenant. My landlord is a REIT, and I live in a large complex with 2 full-time leasing agents onsite, so finding new tenants is not a huge burden for them - they're fine with high turnover. A mom-and-pop landlord might be skittish about that possibility. But it is still better than "what if I can't pay rent because I am unemployed?" Definitely don't ask that :).

to a business owner/landlord, asking how much it costs to exit the lease does not mark you as high risk. it just means you know what you're talking about, and they are free to set that value to whatever they want in the contract.

I'm from Brazil, and despite nearing my thirties, back home the majority of my friends live with their parents and it is hardly seen as a big deal. I think a big driver of this shift is the fact that in the U.S. it is extremely common for one to leave for college, whereas in Brazil literally 100% of my friends who went to school in the country resided with their parents while they were in school.

One of the things that most attract me about the U.S. is the fact that opportunity and mobility is so rampant, and you have people crossing the country for jobs and a different life. That is a superb thing. But what I never, ever understood is seeing young friends of mine who get jobs in their hometowns but who stubbornly "move out" even if they are barely making enough to survive. In terms of lifetime earnings, those few thousand dollars a month that go to a stranger for rent are so, so valuable.

Another point this statistic does not take into account is that the current generation of "parents" are also on average better off than their parents were. The prospect of "living with the parents" would have seemed worse for my father than it did for me. I get that there are economic forces "forcing" kids to stay home, but I'm sure there is also a genuine shift in preference as well.

Being able to choose where I live, being able to decide my own priorities, not dealing with them being around and pestering me, having peace and quiet when I want it and being able to blast my music that they don't like without being asked to turn it down. Being able to have my friends over. Being able to have girls over. Being able to move in with a girlfriend (which is what I did when I moved out.)

I love my parents but I cannot live with them. They annoy me within a few hours of being around them. We don't like the same things. We don't like the same music, the same TV shows, we don't hold similar politics, they are religious and I am an atheist. We just aren't compatible.

For me, university was cheap enough that I was able to work and pay my own tuition. My parents helped a little with housing in the first 2-3 years, but everything else I provided. Almost everyone I knew back then was in the same boat.

Unless you're talking an affluent area, where kids can come out of university with no debt and very useful degrees, what I experienced in the 70's is much rarer now.

So, Brazil and the US, with the middle class both hit pretty hard in the recent decade, is entering a different phase.

I remember talking to my mom and dad about this. When they left the nest, their parents held very strict conservative view, and were often very opinionated in how their sons and daughters should conduct their lives.

Nowadays there's not much to rebel against, especially among the educated class.

That being said, I also believe there is not quite the same urgency to leave home for current young adults. Just from personal observation they don't necessarily see increasing their expenses just to be more independent as worthwhile. Same goes with getting a driver license and a car.

I don't think it's necessarily being lazy, I think they might rightly see that building up all these expenses just to be independent is a bit overkill.

Mix this with people in general getting married later and I find it quite natural that more people are living at home.

People are not much different than they were 50 years ago. If it took just as much resources to live on your own 50 years ago as today, there would "not be the same urgency to leave home." Of course no one wants to leave home if it's going to cost them 40% of their take home pay, but if it only costs them 10-20% of their pay, I really doubt you will see a ton of millenials that don't care about living at home.

This shift in housing signals a dearth of resources available to the current generation. Do we think that's a good thing? A bad thing? Or is it completely neutral? Does it have implications elsewhere for our economy? These are the things that are actually important.

It might not be a "dearth of resources" but a return to the true long-term norm.

Remember, right before the mid century prosperity, we were in a massive depression caused by the "Roaring 20s" which was fueled by another smoldering Europe.

The time period before WWI; the late 1800s and early 1900s were pretty bleak. Before that, the North was fairly prosperous but the South was under reconstruction, so that region was pretty bleak as well.

Of course, there is plenty of wealth to go around today, it's just concentrated due to a war on the middle class by industry, aided by goverment, dating back to at least Reagan.

The Roaring 20s was not the cause of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by a variety of factors, primarily unsustainable debt issuance and overproduction in the agricultural sector. Other important factors include crushing wartime debts owed by European nations to American creditors (vastly harming exports), a liquidity crunch and massive deflation due to adherence to the gold standard, and uncertainty by Capital resulting in a lack of expansion.[2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression

However, the cascade of bank failures occurred due to due to defaulting agricultural loans. The loans' refinancing requests were suddenly refused when European powers pulled currency out of U.S. banks in order to pay their war debts and reparations.

The stock market crash was not the cause of the depression; just one of many larger factors that precipitated it.

The agriultural overproduction was a result of the drop in market prices for goods, so the farmers ramped up production to make up for it, ignoring good farming practices, notably proper tilling and crop / land rotation which resulted in the deterioration of the top soil (dust bowl).

All of this happened in the Roaring 20s.

As far as before the 20s, you had WWI and the industry kings manipulating the markets. They were doing fine, but the people working under them weren't. This was the era of industrialization, child labor and The Jungle. It was wonderful if you were an industry titan, but bleak for most everyone else.

Anyway, my point being, the great prosperity we experienced after WWII was more of an anomaly that anything else. I believe it was sustainable through smart regulation and government investment among other things, but interests have been working hard to bring us back to where we were before.

It is true that margin calls cascaded to obliterate billions of dollars of value, but the investors impacted were mostly trading firms, banks, and capitalists. Joe sixpack had no exposure to it since there was no such thing as a market-backed pension fund (who even had pensions back then?) and 401(k).

Corporate earnings did not drop significantly during and months after the crash. Production and consumption were not affected.

The primary reason for bank failures in the following year were from agricultural defaults. The small, regional banks were the first to fall, not the big city banks.

I don't contest any of your points except "The roaring 20s caused the Great Depression." The economic growth in the 1920s was steady and mostly not speculative. The stock market was speculative but Finance was a much smaller part of the economy at that time. An avalanche of other factors were the causes.

I have no firm opinion regarding post-WW2 growth as anomalous. I think that the idea has merit. The scope of my argument is limited to 1890-1933.

Perhaps we should rethink our nationwide policies of raising housing costs.

Next time, get it right

Consequently, is the implication that the rest of the country isn't recovering nearly as well as the average is reporting? Housing might not be shooting up in the rest of the country, but wages and job opportunities are not great, either.

I'm doing it because it's free, and it's a chance to find a job. If I had a steady job, I'd be out in no time. But goings are tough.

I'm saying job a lot. Live in rural Canada and you'll find that job is the magic word. Lots of people do contracting work up here, for welding and scaffolding and that sort of thing. Lots of people have known the experience of working for a month and never seeing the paycheck as the company goes under.

There's a lot of fuss about the Cite C dam in British Columbia. I think it will be built, no matter the problems, because it means work for the people building it, and those people are people I know. Jobs jobs jobs.

I know this isn't about Canada, and I didn't even read the paywalled article, but I think we're staying home because the economy sucks and there are no jobs.

Admittedly, this might very well be because I have lived in multiple cultures, most of which don't have this antagonistic "kick them out of the house" relationship between parents and adult kids.

The other side of that story is that, yes, if an adult kid has opportunities that might take the kid away from the family home it could make total sense to move out. One example is getting into a really good university on the other side of the country.

I personally believe that the family connection is crucially important and it must remain as intact as possible until the adult children are ready to form their own families. There is no better incubator for future good people than a good family life.

I think there's something to be said for living on your own, cooking your own meals, doing your own laundry and housework, paying your own living expenses, and managing your own finances, before taking the plunge into a situation where it's non-optional. (E.g. a marriage.)

The secret is to have some of those things be part of normal life from when they are little. Bring the laundry to the washing machine. Help fold it. Help cook Help clean, etc. Not that difficult.

The financial side can be introduced initially through games and later on in different ways.

It just takes forethought and consistency. And it doesn't have to be punishment but rather part of normal life.

This is a norm that I think we should do away with. And by that, I mean we should stop making turning that age the time that we flip the switch and the kids move out.

What I would suggest in its place... encourage them to go when they're ready. This places more responsibility on the parents in assisting with all the types of preparation that make one ready for leaving home.

There's a LOT more to this conversation, but I figure this is a good starter. :)

Therefore, you should stay where you are (if possible) and save until that down payment can make a worthwhile home affordable with only a single income. It is the only fiscally responsible choice.

P.S. I know the above probably is a bit of topic as even having the ability to choose somewhat implies that you aren't totally struggling financially.

Myself, my wife, and my daughter are building a house with my parents right now. If you can find a good job in the same city, I have trouble understanding why someone wouldn't want to live together.

The economies of scale and the benefits of having extra helpers around with our daughter (and 2nd one on the way!), more than outweigh any downsides to us. The psychological impacts to our children of having our grandparents around as positive continual influences seem pretty valuable to us?

The whole concept of 'moving out' is barbaric to say the least. Old folks who can't fend for themselves in many situations and their old bodies fail them in most basic of tasks such as cleaning house and cooking are then simply shoved into 'old folks house' till they breathe their last.

Best if this generation can break this sh!tty concept about 'moving out' - after all, they themselves would become old one day...

We've asked her multiple times if she wanted to live with us or our aunt, every time she's refused. She wants to stay independent and instead hired a helper who comes everyday for a few hours and helps her with the basic tasks.

We often come to visit her but she doesn't want us to stay too long or too often for the same reason. She values her independence. So, yes I see the point about living with aging parents but it's also good not to deny the independence of those same aging parents.

The Asian model of staying at home with the parents does have a lot of tradeoffs too. Usually the wife needs to move in with her husband's parents and this is not easy at all for the wife. I've seen a few divorces that were due to conflicts with the in laws (which are much worse when you actually have to live with them). I also have a friend whose parents had a big house and lived together with all their sons and the parents decided to sell that house, buy separate houses for each of their sons and live alone because it was just too much headache for them.

I don't know if this is a real trend or just something I'm seeing but someone should probably study this phenomenon.

Not everyone who lives at home with their parents are the same and in some cases it does make sense,

but from my observations of people who live at home:

- No skills on managing self: relies on parents to manage

- No financial management skills: using all your money for play money and not contributing to the household.

- Can't take a date home: unless you want to introduce your parents right away

- ManChild Syndrome: grown kids playing video games and watching tv.

- No drive: as long as you have parents, why try. Everything is already provided for you.

> No skills on managing self:

This was the worst part for me, I wanted and had been self reliant before, but it's hard to do in a shared house.

>No financial management skills: using all your money for play money and not contributing to the household.

I was paying minimal board (when I was able) and saving for a deposit on a house (which are insanely expensive here), is that irresponsible?

>Can't take a date home: unless you want to introduce your parents right away

It's not the 1950's anymore. Meeting someones parents is not a big deal.

>ManChild Syndrome: grown kids playing video games and watching tv.

Problem being?

>No drive: as long as you have parents, why try. Everything is already provided for you.

Another expense to try and minimize.

As opposed to playing golf and watching football games?

(3) is irrelevant. Nobody should intentionally hemorrhage themselves financially just to get the opportunity to take dates home without being hassled. Chances are your date probably lives at home too anyway.

(4) is uncalled for and completely irrelevant. I game, I watch TV, have a healthy social life and I take care of business.

(5) is a very likely outcome as well. Moved out for this reason as well. Could feel the malaise / indifference coming on.

Unfortuantly I 1) don't have enough time for a full time job since I'm wasting away my better years and credit in college, and 2) none of my friends want to move out or will be allowed to move out by their parents.

Finding a room mate will be tough. I'm going to try... but it'll still be tough. This is extra worse because of how high the rent is here in NJ (even in Paterson, Franklin Lakes, and Newerk where I go to school).

1) Parents have been having kids later in life. How many of these are because the child (read: adult offspring) is home to help care of an ill or older parent?

2) As the divorce rate increases homes that were was the right size for a traditional family are now too big for one parent or the other on their own. The kids move back because it's practical for all.

3) Related to 2, the housing market has sucked. Selling for many hasn't been an option. This "enables" yas to stay home longer.

The point is, this isn't a YA issue per se. There are plenty of broader social changes that a helping to redefine the American family unit.

Eastern European (Bulgarian) 36-year old programmer here, still living in Sofia (the capital).

We don't miss communism and socialism. At all. A good chunk of us around here are competitive and want to demonstrate skills for better money. There are frauds and freeloaders but hell, is there a community where there isn't?

I've witnessed the fall of our regime (1989) when I was 9. Later on the fall of the USSR followed. I didn't quite appreciate these events back then but the effect on the standard of living on the other hand was VERY visible.

It has been a very gradual process, but our country is bleeding brains, skills and money -- badly, and all the time. Quite frankly I don't think that the EU countries are so much better; what good is a triple salary if your rent and bills are triple the amount as well? The only real benefit I guess is to get a citizenship several years down the line and not be afraid that yet another shady government will appropriate all retirement funds and you'll be left with peanuts when you eventually grow old.

My mother lives with me and my girlfriend. Her pension is 60 euros. You read that correctly, it's not a typo. If it wasn't for me, she'd be yet another old woman with eyes full of tears, struggling not to die of cold on the street, and to have a few mouthfuls of bread a day. (Father died a long time ago, back in 2002)

We at Eastern Europe are diverse people. We don't frown upon at either situation -- living with or without parents, but for many people living in a bigger flat/house with the family is simply more convenient (my mother's cooking is absolutely fantastic and is easily worth €30 a meal, I am pretty sure of it!) and makes much more sense financially. It is what it is, we can't do much about it.

Long story short: I am now in ~ €20,000 debt and the thought of getting a mortgage is making me grind my teeth. As other posters said, we're not even close! My mother and father were working governmental jobs and they had an apartment fully paid for when they were at their ages of 40-42. Had two cars. And that was a backwater communistic/socialistic country, a mere satelite of the USSR. I can't imagine how much better many others had it really.

(The fact that I should probably look for a higher paid job since I am in demand is an irony that doesn't escape me, but that's a personal struggle interwoven with many other factors which I won't touch upon here.)

The article has struck many nerves in me. It's true not only in the USA.