Women leave nest, men stay with parents

As more adults decide to live with mom and dad, young men appear to be less willing to fly the nest than women, a new study finds. This, experts say, could be an early sign of larger economic problems....

MarketWatch

Aug. 4, 2013, 8:16 a.m. EDT

Women leave nest, men stay with parents

Gen-Y men seem less able or willing to cut the apron strings

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By Quentin Fottrell

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As more adults decide to live with mom and dad, young men appear to be less willing to fly the nest than women, a new study finds. This, experts say, could be an early sign of larger economic problems.

Millions of young Americans are living at home, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. The number of “millennials” -- adults aged 18 to 31-- living at home rose to 36% last year. That represented the highest percentage in the last four decades, and a significant increase from 32% just five years earlier. In 2012, 56% of adults aged 18 to 24 lived in their parental home, Pew found, as did 16% of adults aged 25 to 31. However, millennial males (40%) were significantly more likely than millennial females (32%) to live with mom and dad.

There are some demographic reasons for the gender gap. On average, men tend to marry later than women, says Zhenchao Qian, chair of sociology at Ohio State University. “There are more single young men than women out there,” he says. “This gives unmarried men more time to live with their parents.” Men marry at around 29 years of age, approximately two years older than the average for women, and both sexes are marrying around two years later in life than two decades ago, according to a 2012 survey by Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family and Marriage Research in Ohio.

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Is Generation Y Holding Back the Housing Recovery?

Millions of young Americans are unemployed or underemployed, living with roommates or at home with Mom and Dad — instead of buying homes of their own, a new study found. Quentin Fottrell reports. Photo: Getty Images.

Perhaps a more controversial theory: Sons may also have an easier time at home. Even in 2013, parents expect their sons to do less housework than their daughters, Qian says. “Parents give their sons more freedom than their daughters,” says Kit Yarrow, chair of the psychology department at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, Calif. and co-author of “Gen Y.” For Americans aged 18 to 24, “it’s easier for a young man to live at home and still feel independent than it would be for a young woman,” she says. An even less flattering reason: “Women tend to mature, emotionally, faster than men.”

Also see: 10 things Generation Y won’t tell you.

But there are more worrying factors in play than a taste for the comforts of home, says John Bonini, content marketing manager of Impact Branding & Design in Wallingford, Conn., who regularly carries out research on millennials. Women have consistently outnumbered men when it comes to college enrollment, he says. “Since the economic downturn, with many state and local governments cutting spending, and manual labor jobs doing the same, it would make sense that those with college degrees would see a greater chance of gaining employment than those without one.” Many young men, he says, are getting left behind.

Young women tend to outperform men in post-secondary education. Some 71.3% of female high school graduates in the class of 2012 enrolled in college versus 61.3% of males, according to the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The former also appear to be better students. “Females tend to finish college faster than males,” according to the Pew report. What’s more, men who had earned bachelor’s degrees in 2011 had an unemployment rate of 16.1% in October 2011, compared with 11.2% among females, a separate Bureau of Labor Statistics report found.

Regardless of sex, children living at home longer put a bigger financial burden on their parents and the economy. Hosting a son or daughter after 18 can cost $8,000 to $18,000 a year, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. And the fact that around 22.6 million young adults are still living at home also means there are fewer renters and potential buyers of first-time homes in the property market. Only 450,000 new households are being created annually versus 1.1 million before the recession, according to real-estate marketplace Trulia; 18- to 34-year-olds make up half of that demand.

See more: “The kids aren’t buying homes.”

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Women leave nest, men stay with parents

Actually, this is all very logical given the present dynamics. There are so MANY homeless young men everywhere that this makes sense. So many have even gotten college degrees and then cannot get a job and so cannot pay off their student loans and when they go into bankruptcy that young some give up hope. So, young men staying at home rather than facing bankruptcy, an no jobs makes sense to me at this time.

Whereas young women might just get married or go in another direction entirely. So, the present worldwide situation is "psychologically castrating" for the young men of this era more than any single era I have ever seen in my lifetime.

I think a part of this is gender confusion that has taken away from men their natural place in society for thousands of years to the place where young men are confused and have no "natural way to perceive themselves and be accepted anymore". This will likely get much worse until there is a war or something and the "Caveman" philosophy is necessary for human survival once again.

For example, My daughter who is 17 completely doesn't accept who I am because it doesn't fit it with her Prep School way of thinking. I say to her "I have suffered a lot to become the man I am and I am not changing to fit your standards." The problem is most young men have been so "psychologically castrated" that they might as well not have testosterone because it isn't really useful in the upper class Prep school ways of thinking. 

However, for both male and female college graduates that are willing to go alone to another country and teach English there is a way to pay of your student loans and see the world at the same time. I was reading a blog of someone who couldn't get a job and applied to work for the public school system of South Korea. They were hired and they are able to save 1200 dollars a month towards the repayment of their student loans and anything else they might want to do like travel around Asia to Japan, India, Thailand or China or other places. It appears that according to them a free small apartment is included by the South Korean state. Also, food is very inexpensive there as well as breakfast is only about $3 and another interesting fact is that it is less expensive in some cases to eat at restaurants there than buying food to cook for yourself. Of course this will depend upon where you are located teaching as this person has a job in a small town in the country which is less expensive. So, if you have a degree in anything from a U.S. College or university, South Korea or another country that wants English teachers and you are under 40 to 50 years of age this is a possibility for you. They were also saying that public schools are very stable about paying you but private schools in South Korea are less certain about being paid.