As can be seen here, 48% of Boomers age 18-24 were counted as “living at home” versus 57% today (but see below – they changed how they counted “living at home”).
9% of “Boomers” age 25-35 lived at home versus 18% today – this is a big percentage increase.
(Data was interpolated by Grok AI as exact percentages not available.)
Today there are 2 to 3x more college students than there were in the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, due to how they count “living at home”, more young people are now shown as “living at home” just because of the far higher percent now attending college (and living at home while attending a community college or local 4-year college).
I lived at home the first 2 years I was at a 4-year college and would have been counted as “living at home” in the late 1970s.
As Grok puts it
- In both eras, full-time college students are much more likely to live with parents or in dorms (which Census counts as “not living independently” until the 1990s; after that, dorms were reclassified, but many still live at home).
- Today: ~25–30% of 18–24-year-old college students live with parents (especially at commuter schools and community colleges). Another ~20–25% live in dorms (counted separately now).
- Boomer era: Far fewer students in college then, and most who did go to college lived on-campus or off-campus in cheap apartments (dorms were smaller, and many schools were commuter anyway).
Result: The sheer increase in college-going pushes up the “living with parents” percentage even if non-students behave exactly the same as in the 1970s.
Almost half of the increase in “living at home” is explained by the increase in college attendance, says Grok.
Fewer students going to college in the 1960s and 1970s also meant that many young people were working – rather than living at home and/or going to college.
