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Millennials Aren't Really Living in Their Parents' Basements, They're Just Going to College

  • July 7th 2014

by Lark Turner

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Millennials Aren't Really Living in Their Parents' Basements, They're Just Going to College: Figure 1

The widely-reported uptick in millennials “living with their parents” may be due to a Census quirk, according to the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson.

The Census’ Current Population Survey, which many outlets use to report on population trends, “counts students living in dormitories as living in their parents’ home,” as Thompson points out. (Thompson himself, along with many other commentators, has previously suggested that millennials are “increasingly” choosing to live with their parents thanks to the recession’s aftershocks.)

A 2013 analysis of the trend by Pew took into account that some of the students “living at home” were in college and still concluded that the number of people living at home was on the rise. But Thompson points out that rise has, on the whole, been greatly exaggerated in the media. The rising number of kids going to college accounts for a big chunk of the trend.

From Pew:

“A record total of 21.6 million Millennials lived in their parents’ home in 2012, up from 18.5 million of their same aged counterparts in 2007. Of these, at least a third and perhaps as many as half are college students.”

See other articles related to: millennials, the atlantic

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/millennials_arent_really_living_in_their_parents_basements_theyre_just_goin/8701.

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