Young adults who moved back in with their parents for economic reasons in recent years are largely happy with the arrangement, according to new research.
The study by the Pew Research Centre is based on a survey of households as well as an analysis of US Census data.
It also showed that parents whose children had returned home were upbeat about the predicament - and just as happy as parents whose adult children had not come home.
Some 39 percent of all young adults, aged 18 to 34, in the United States have been forced to move back in with their parents in recent years, Pew said.
Of those aged 25 to 34, 78 percent told the researchers they were happy with their living arrangements.
“If there's supposed to be a stigma attached to living with mom and dad,” the researchers wrote, “today's 'boomerang generation' didn't get the memo.”
Pew said the recent recession, and the long peek-a-boo recovery that followed it, has triggered a sharp rise in multi-generational households in the United States.
Looking at Census data, the researchers said the percentage of Americans living in multi-generational households is now at its highest since the early 1950s, largely because of soaring unemployment among young people.
Nearly 22 percent of adults aged 25 to 34 live in multi-generational households, Pew said, up from a low of 11 percent in 1980.
Young adults who are unemployed are much more likely to be living with their parents or to have moved back temporarily, the researchers found.
Nearly half of the young adults, aged 18 to 34, who were unemployed moved back in with the parents, Pew said, compared with just 30 percent of those who were employed full time.
Younger adults were also far more likely to return home, Pew found, with 53 percent of those aged 18 to 24 moving back in, compared with 41 percent of those aged 25 to 29 and 17 percent of those aged 30 to 34.
While 78 percent of the boomerang kids aged 25 to 34 complained they did not currently have enough money to lead the kind of life they wanted, 77 percent said they remained optimistic about their future financial prospects.
The researchers found that, overall, the experience of moving back home was good for inter-generational relations, with 34 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 saying it had improved their relationship with their parents.
Only 18 percent said it had been bad for their relationship with their parents and 47 percent said it had made no difference.
Asked how they paid their parents back, 96 percent of the boomerang kids aged 18 to 34 said they helped around the house with chores and 75 percent said they contributed to other household expenses.
Only 35 percent said they paid any rent.
When it came to contributing to household expenses, however, young women were much more likely to do so than young men, Pew found, with 84 percent of the women saying they helped out with groceries or utility bills compared with just 67 percent of the men.
The report was based on a telephone survey conducted in December of a nationally representative sample of 2,048 adults.
In addition, the researchers mined data on multi-generational households compiled by the US Census Bureau's American Community Surveys from 2007 through 2010. - Reuters