They invade homes every summer, and their numbers are growing.  They are young adults returning home to live with their parents.  In the New York Times article “Offspring Who Cling to the Nest,” Gina Bellafante observes specimens from this species up close, and cites data from Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge.

We are now at the end of the season when college graduates move out of their dorms and on to their new lives. But it seems as if many of them end up back in their old rooms at home. To support that observation, the past week saw the release of new census data pointing to the toll the recession has taken on certain kinds of domestic arrangements. Across the country, from 2007 to 2010, the number of adult children living with their parents increased by 1.2 million. Despite constrictions of space, and despite the sense that the economy has rebounded more successfully here than it has in many other parts of the country, the trend is very much in evidence in New York. According to an analysis of census data by the Queens College sociologist Andrew A. Beveridge last week, 45 percent of the city’s 22- to 24-year-olds live at home. Among those ages 22 to 39, nearly a quarter — 22 percent — do. These numbers have increased since 2000 and went up more during the recession.

With fewer jobs, more unpaid internships, and the expense of living in New York City, the trend continues to rise.  Fortunately, according to a Pew Research Center Study on the Boomerang Generation, most of them get along–with 68 percent of respondents between 18 and 34 who live with their parents are “very satisfied” with their family life.

Beveridge is well versed in this trend, both through data analysis and a very local data point who returned to his own nest for a time.

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