Staying home and getting on: Tackling the challenges facing low to middle income families where young adults live with their parents

• Context
• The study
• Key findings
• Points to consider

Context

This report is set in the context of the growing proportion of young people in the UK living with their parents – two in three single people aged 20-34 (without children), which is over 3.5 million young people – making it more of a life stage than stop gap.

The research focusses on the experiences of low to middle income families in this situation who have received less attention amid the stereotypical view of young adults being helped by the ‘bank of mum and dad’. Living with parents is a source of support in the context of instability, insecurity and housing constraint for young adults. Over the long term, there is a need to improve housing and employment opportunities for this group. But this report looks at how households are responding to current structures, and at how they can be best supported in doing so.

The study

The research questions were:

The research looks at implications of co-residing with adult children from the perspectives of both young adults and parents. The project set out to examine how being in a combined household interacts with income, living standards and opportunities, and how this situation affects long-term financial and housing prospects and aspirations for young adults and parents.

The overall project comprised three linked phases. An initial report (Hill et al., 2020a) drew on analysis of survey data, a literature review and policy mapping to provide an overview of households where young adults live with parents, existing research and an outline of the policy landscape they face, in particular the interaction of living arrangements, household income and social security.

The research covered in this report involved two phases. The first comprised 36 interviews in late 2020/early 2021 with young adults (age 20-34) and parents in low to middle income households to explore their experiences and needs. This included influences behind their living arrangements, the financial, practical and social implications of living together, in current circumstances and for the future. This was followed by consultation with stakeholder organisations and focus groups with young adults and parents to explore policy and practice responses that could help to address the needs of families and potentially better support young adults and parents. Given the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, interviews were conducted over the telephone or using Zoom.

Key findings

Current and longer-term disadvantages impact on the situation of low to middle income households as their children move into adulthood.

• While Covid was an ever-present feature, with implications for families’ current circumstances, many issues preceded the pandemic.
• Parents do not necessarily have the means to financially support their children when living at home or assist them moving out. Affordability was an overriding factor influencing the degree of choice and constraints in young adults and parents’ living arrangements with key issues being the cost of alternative housing to rent or buy and lack of affordable social housing; and employment and income (in)security.
• Key ingredients needed to move out are stable work and earnings, savings, a partner or someone to share the cost with.
• Young adults’ and parents’ views about living arrangements varied from being content with the situation, seeing it as serving a purpose in a longer-term plan to save to move out, to feeling stuck in a less than ideal situation due to lack of other options.
• For most young adults the aim was to live independently, but looking ahead tended to focus more around hopes of securing a steady job and decent income as a precursor to moving out.
• For parents, the financial implication of their son or daughter moving out varied depending on the extent of their contribution to the household.

Understanding how this family arrangement works, what makes it work better or worse and what could help.

• Living with parents could bring mutual benefits: to build savings, contributions can help parents who are struggling, and provide company and emotional support. However, challenges around finances, space, and relationships could bring tension.
• Relationships between parents and young adults, the responsibilities that each took on, and the financial arrangements within families were often related and linked to families’ feelings about their living situation, and the ability of everyone to meet their needs.
• Communication is a key starting point to help families develop mutual understandings about what works best for all concerned, both financially and relationally. However, conversations about money were not always easy to have.

Young adults are viewed by the state as independent financial units, but there are implications of living together on household finances, including through social security.

• Parents who receive benefits can experience a substantial drop in entitlements when their child leaves education or training and becomes ‘non-dependent’, resulting in an income shock that is hard to manage. Those who are renting are also subject to a non-dependent deduction from their housing related benefits for an adult child living at home.
• There was sometimes hesitancy among young adults living with parents to claim benefits (straight way) if they lost work. This related to concerns about eligibility, the process, the impact of claiming on parents’ benefits, pride, and hoping that they would quickly get a job, only claiming when they became ‘desperate’. This could mean that young adults were unable to contribute to the household finances and/or were using precious savings.

Public policy implications and recommendations were also discussed in the context of these findings.

Points to consider

• Methodological strengths/weaknesses: The methodology appears sound and the qualitative research presented in this study is underpinned by a previous study, which drew on analysis of survey data, a literature review and policy mapping to provide an overview of households where young adults live with parents.
  • Qualitative interviews included households across the UK, in urban and rural settings. A mixture of paired (young adult and parent) and independent interviews allowed an insight from both perspectives in some households, and also allowed individuals to participate who may have been reluctant or unable to recruit their parent or young adult for a range of reasons.
  • The authors cited that the research could be strengthened via longitudinal research to follow how family members fare over time.
• Generalisability/ transferability: The research was conducted in the UK so care should be taken when considering applying the learning in other countries, as housing and benefits systems vary across nations.
• Relevance: The evaluation is of significant interest to those wishing to understand the implications of co-residing with adult children from the perspectives of both young adults and parents, and how this situation affects long-term financial and housing prospects and aspirations for young adults and parents.