OTTAWA – Fresh out of chiropractic school
in Chicago, Vijay Gopal packed up his $180,000 student debt and moved back in
with his parents in Mississauga, Ont.
“I would love to live on my own right now,
but it’s not a financially responsible thing to do right now for me,” said the
27-year-old.
Gopal isn’t alone. He is one of 4.3 million
Canadian 20-somethings who either never left their parental home or moved back
in.
Just over 40 per cent of adults aged 20 to
29-years-old live with their parents-a number that has held steady over the past ten
years, according to newly released Statistics Canada data on families and
dwellings from the 2011 census.
Still, the number is well above the 32 per
cent reported in 1991 and the 27 per cent in 1981.
Among the reasons listed by Statistics
Canada for the spike are cultural differences, longer schooling, older marriage
ages, cost of housing and unemployment.
But the economy tops the list of reasons
why young Canadians delay leaving nest, according to Barbara Mitchell, a
professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.
“The labour market has not been that kind
to young people,” Mitchell said.
The recession of 2008, and years of slow
economic growth that followed, left many young people unemployed or stringing
together temporary jobs.
University and ensuing student debt can
also leave kids without the financial means to move out, especially in a tough
job market.
“Tuition seems to be constantly going up
and then they’re left with a degree but not really great job prospects that
really allow them to live on their own,” Mitchell said.
Other young people, according to Mitchell,
could afford to live on their own, but it would mean downgrading their
lifestyles.
Statistics Canada’s data backs up
Mitchell’s claim that the economy is a fundamental part of young adults’
calculations to move out.
The census found in general the shares of adult children living in the parental home were higher than the national average in places with a
high cost of living and in areas with high proportions of immigrants.
Adult children are more likely to live at
home at the beginning of their 20s, with 59 per cent choosing to stay with mom
and dad. As 30 inches closer, the number of children living at home drops to a
quarter.
Demographer Kevin McQuillan said the number
sheds light on how much family has stepped up to help each other – an enduring
characteristic of families themselves.
“For all of the changes we’ve seen and they
have been profound in terms of family arrangements, for a tremendous amount of
people in our society there is this sense that if I get in a tough spot, I look
to my family for support,” said the University of Calgary professor.
While families may want to help, there can
be tensions in the living arrangement as parents may feel taken advantage of
and both parties navigate privacy and boundaries.
Although children may eventually move out,
Mitchell said she doesn’t see an end in sight for the phenomenon in general.
“It’s a very different social and economic
world that this generation is growing up in compared to what the baby boomers
grew up in when it was a lot more feasible to expect a more predictable
transition to adulthood,” she said.
“You left home, you got married, you could
buy the house, you had your car. You could experience an empty nest at a fairly
young age.”
As more people move home, the stigma around
“failure to launch” as a pathology or malfunction is also subsiding, according
to Mitchell.
“It almost perpetuates or fuels the
phenomenon because if people feel more comfortable in doing it, then they’re
more likely to engage in those kinds of behaviours,” she said.
MEET
THE BOOMERANG KIDS
Amanda
Dwyer: 30 years old, Georgetown, Ontario
Amanda Dwyer has been living with her
mother since November, after years of living away from home. She moved in when
she and her husband separated. They’re now in the process of divorcing, and on
a single income, she couldn’t afford to keep the house they had bought
together.
“It’s sort of given me a chance to get back
on my feet,” says Dwyer. “And obviously in my case, the emotional support was
helpful.”
Dwyer says she and her mother get along
very well, though she says it’s an adjustment to have to live in someone else’s
space. She pays rent for her room.
“I
don’t plan on getting stuck or too comfortable,” she says. “I don’t want to be
five years from now, still living here. For me, it was just more because of
circumstance.”
She is saving up money and waiting for the
divorce to be finalized before leaving. She also hopes to build up her small
business, which is teaching theatre and voice lessons to kids, before she
leaves home for good.
“I don’t want to leave too quickly either.”
Vijay
Gopal: 27 years old, Mississauga, Ontario
Vijay Gopal moved back into his parents’
home in August, after he came home from school with a mountain of student debt.
He says he owes about $180,000, accumulated
through an undergraduate degree at McGill University, and chiropractor training
in Chicago.
“”I would love to live on my own right now,
but it’s not a financially responsible thing to do right now for me,” he said.
“If I can go home, have no expenses, not have to worry about all that stuff,
then I can just earn money, pay off that loan and eventually just move out when
I feel like I’m more stable.”
Gopal just got a job in his field, and he
is hoping to pay off about half of his loan, $90,000, in two years. When he
does that, he says, he will move out.
He doesn’t pay rent, but he helps with
chores and manual labour around the house.
He says living at his parents’ home isn’t
unusual in his culture. “I’m of Indian origin, so our families are pretty
close-knit.
“I’m also the eldest in the family, of the
children. Usually the eldest child in the Indian background takes care of the
parents. So I feel like it’s an early start for me to start letting my dad
relax a little bit and me taking on some more of the responsibilities. So
living at home, it’s kind of cool for me to do that. I get that opportunity
finally.”
Julia
Barrett: 26 years old, Toronto, Ontario
Julia Barrett recently moved out of her
mother’s house, after living there since 2009.
She lived at home while attending school,
first studying English and theatre, then attending a public relations program,
which she finished in 2010. She stayed at home when she got her first job,
which was a short-term contract to replace someone who was on maternity leave.
“I was concerned that if I moved out, at
that point even if I had a job, if the contract ran out, it was a mat leave
contract, I would be in an apartment with no money,” she says.
She made the decision to live at home
because she felt it would improve her career prospects. “I think that it was a
huge advantage in that there was less urgency for me to find a job, so I could
pursue a career,” she says. She didn’t want to take on a part-time job to pay
the bills and have less time to pursue a career-making opportunity.
“I’m a very anxious person, so I would have
felt overwhelmed by the pressure of having to pay rent, and also find a career
and also find a job,” she says.
She spent much of her time doing
informational interviews with people in her field until she found the right
job. Now that she feels secure in her career, she has moved out of her mother’s
home.
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