Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Most Parents Paying to Help Young Adults

A new study finds that more than 60% of today's young adults have received financial help from their parents. Among the 62% of young adults getting parents' help, the average amount was $12,185, says lead author Patrick Wightman of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Children who parents said were cheerful, self-reliant and got along well with others before age 12 were more likely to receive financial gifts or loans as young adults, Wightman says. And in families with more than one child, "if they perceive one of those kids to have a better attitude or to be more self-reliant, that kid has higher odds of receiving this type of support," he says.

The analysis is based on more than 2,000 interviews with 1,368 people ages 19-22 and their parents in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

About 42% of parents help adult children pay their bills, 35% help with college tuition, 23% help with vehicle expenses, and 22% help with rent away from home, researchers found.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/story/2012-04-27/Boomer-parents-provide-financial-help/54707250/1

More Parents Happy to Keep Kids in Nest

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 31 percent said young adults shouldn’t have to be on their own until age 25 or older. In a 1993 Newsweek study, 80 percent of parents pegged that age at 22.

Researchers say the new study is evidence that attitudes are catching up to new norms of adulthood, shaped both by a merciless economy and cultural forces that have been shifting for decades.

“It takes longer to become financially independent these days. Parents are adapting to a new reality,” said Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, who researches the path to adulthood at Clark University’s psychology department in Worcester, Mass. He has led an effort to recognize “emerging adulthood” –– age 18 through the 20s –– as a life stage between adolescence and adulthood, characterized by instability, exploration and often financial help from parents. More parents today wind up supporting their children even into their 30s, he said.

“It’s a bit jarring to them,” said Arnett, who is writing a book for parents of emerging adults. “On the other hand, most of them are willing to provide it and provide it without doing so grudgingly. They see it as necessary to their kids’ success.”

Arnett said that cultural changes since as early as the 1960s have led young adults to delay milestones such as marriage and buying a home. Parents have fewer children and higher incomes than in the past, so they can afford to help, and young people are willing to try more jobs while looking for the right one.

Help from parents can take many forms, such as chipping in for rent, opening the door to move back home or covering health and car insurance. The cellphone plan is often the last tie to be severed, Arnett said.

Source: Columbus Dispatch
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/25/more-parents-happy-to-keep-kids-in-nest.html

Canadian Boomerang: 51% of Young Adults Live with Parents

You may know members of Generation Boomerang.

They’re 20 to 29 years old and still living at home — or they had to ‘boomerang’ home due to money, job or personal problems.

The global trend — probed in Sharon Bartlett’s documentary premiering Thursday on CBC — shows 51 per cent of young Canadian adults still live with their parents.

“It’s global. We went to Italy where 70 percent are living at home,” said the filmmaker who made Generation Boomerang, and other docs, with Maria LeRose.

“It’s a new life stage, in the same way society accepted adolescence,” Bartlett said. “It’s here for the long haul, and won’t go away when the economy gets better. Some youths are quite comfortable being at home — in many cultures it’s the norm.”

Source: bclocalnews
http://www.bclocalnews.com/entertainment/133495083.html

Living Together Too Much Commitment for Emerging Adults

A growing number of young American adults are engaging in what's called "stayover relationships," in which they spend three or more nights together each week while still having the option of going to their own homes, a new study shows.

"Instead of following a clear path from courtship to marriage, individuals are choosing to engage in romantic ties on their own terms without the guidance of social norms," study author Tyler Jamison, a doctoral candidate in the human development and family studies department at the University of Missouri, said in a university news release.

"There is a gap between the teen years and adulthood during which we don't know much about the dating behaviors of young adults. Stayovers are the unique answer to what emerging adults are doing in their relationships," she added.

The couples in the study with stayover routines were content in their relationships, but didn't necessarily plan to move in together or get married.

The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Source: USA Today
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/sex-relationships/dating/story/2011/08/Living-together-too-much-commitment-for-todays-couples/49849606/1