Why are women moving back home at the highest rate since the 1940s?
A Pew Research Center report shows that there are more young women living at home with family in the United States than any point since the 1940s. There are still more men living with family than women — 42.8 percent to 36.4 percent. The Daily Tar Heel staff writer Zoe Hazerjian asked UNC students what they thought about the new data.
Angum Check
First-Year
Political Science, Philosophy
That’s interesting, because I thought in more developed countries women generally move out and they take longer to get married. I feel like it has to do with college debt and stuff because when you get out of college, it’s hard to find jobs, so you go back to your parents. So I guess it makes sense.
Saoirse Scott
First-year
Undecided
That’s kind of surprising to me that that many people still live at home between those ages, and that they hadn’t like, I don’t know, gone out and gotten jobs and moved on with their lives.
Christopher Bennett
First-year
Global Studies, Biology
I think we are giving women fewer opportunities for maternity leave and fewer opportunities to actually have careers outside the workplace.
Obafemi Animashaun
Sophomore
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I mean that’s kind of low, but it’s just personal preference. Sometimes family relations — they don’t want to be home, and also some people don’t want to be home. So it’s probably like each case is different.
Julio Gaviria
Junior
Economics
I’m not really surprised. I think that like a lot of people are going back and living with their parents after school because of financial security and just not being able to find a job right away.
Samuel Weeks
Junior
Biology, English
I think it’s great to show connectedness within families. There is still closeness generationally, but I think there are also problems that come about when people are just having lingering adolescence in a lot of those cases where they're not growing up and sort of moving on with their lives — sort of past hanging out with their parents and relying on them and not necessarily taking up responsibility. But a lot of that is really hard because college debt and stuff like that can make it so difficult to really move on and be independent.
