Doubling Up When Times Are Tough: A Study of Obligations to Share a Home in Response to Economic Hardship

PWP-CCPR-2010-008

Abstract

Using an innovative factorial vignette design embedded in an Internet survey, this study investigates how the family status of an adult child affects attitudes toward the desirability of intergenerational co-residence in response to economic hardship. Americans express greater support for co-residence between an adult child and a parent when the adult child is single rather than partnered. Support for co-residence is weaker if the adult child is cohabiting rather than married to the partner, although groups with greater exposure to cohabitation make less of a distinction between marriage and cohabitation. The presence of a grandchild does not affect views about extending help through co-residence. There is much more support for sharing a home when a mother needs a place to live than when the adult child does. Responses to openended questions show that individuals invoke both universalistic family obligations and particularistic qualities of family relationships to explain their attitudes.