ith Ohio University’s graduation only six months away, many seniors are up to their waists in job and graduate school applications and also looking for places to live.
But unfortunately, some graduates might not be in luck.
According to an August report from Pew Research Center, 36 percent of adults in the U.S. ages 18 through 31 — referred to as “millennials” in the report — lived with their parents in 2012.
In the Midwest, 36 percent of millennials live at home, compared to 34 percent in both the southern and western regions of the U.S. and 44 percent in the northeast region.
Although many find the idea of living with their parents in college or after graduation daunting, Jon Denhart, a sophomore studying construction management at Hocking College, said commuting to school from home is a good way to save money.
“I enjoy it,” said Denhart, whose three brothers went to OU and lived in the dorms. “I get to hang out with my family a lot.”
Although Denhart said he is satisfied with his decision to stay at home, other college students might not be as accepting.
In regard to living at home, Denhart said there are times that “you (might) feel like you’re not able to go out.”
Richard Fry, a senior economist at Pew’s Hispanic Trends Project and publisher of the report, said that the recession and the weak recovery have impacted millennials’ “economic capacity to live independently,” because of the competitive job market.
Fry said that from 1981 to 2007, the rate of 18 to 31-year-olds living with their parents stayed constant and relatively low compared to today.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, about 52 percent of women and about 60 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 24 live in a household owned by their parents.
That is much higher than the approximate 11 percent of women and about 16 percent of men between the ages of 25 and 34 that reside in a household owned by their parents, according to the Census.
The increasing rate of millennials living in households owned by their parents can be attributed to factors such as declining employment, rising college enrollment and declining marriage rate, according to the Pew data.
“Millennials have faced a much more difficult job market than earlier groups of young adults,” Fry said.
He also noted that he doesn’t believe one factor affects today’s young adults more than others.
As of spring 2013, OU’s total enrollment, including its branch campuses, is 37,493; up 6.4 percent since 2007, according to the OU Office of Institutional Research.
Virginia Hyer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau, said that despite increasing college enrollment, she doesn’t think there’s a relationship between postsecondary education and young adults who live with their parents.
Fry, on the other hand, said that there’s an inverse correlation, adding that educated millennials are much less likely to live with their parents.
“My simple and straightforward explanation is that better educated millennials are more likely to have jobs and get paid significantly more,” he said.
In OU’s Career and Further Education Study, created by the Office of Institutional Research, 85 percent of OU graduates were employed in 2010, one year after graduating. Only five percent were unemployed and not attending graduate school.
“At this point, we feel very good about our graduation rate,” OU President Roderick McDavis said in a previous Post article.
But Fry said after he compared numbers of millennials living at home in 2012 compared to that of September 2013, there was not much change in the number who are dependent on their parents.
“Economists expect fewer millennials will be living with their parents,” Fry said. “But (they) don’t know how long that’s going to take.”
kf398711@ohiou.edu
@KellyPFisher
