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Pop culture may depict adult children living at home as a drain on their parents’ money, privacy and sanity. But in reality, adult children who move back home — known as boomerang children — don’t derail their parents’ retirement.
New research from the National Bureau of Economic Research dispels the notion that boomerang kids are a burden. In fact, there may be some positives to having Junior come back home, researchers found.
“Boomerang children have been portrayed in the media and by some financial organizations as a monetary drain jeopardizing parental retirement, the premise being that parents may need to delay retirement if they deplete their savings to support co-resident children,” the research said.
The study looked at a sample of 51-year-old to 69-year-old parents. It defined a boomerang kid as an adult child under the age of 30 who returns to the parental home without being a caregiver to the parents.
The share of U.S. adult children living with their parents has increased since the 1960s. In 2020, during the pandemic, about one-third of children between ages 18 and 34 lived with their parents, with men and 18-24 year-olds, respectively, more likely to live at home than women and 25- 34 year-olds, the study found.
The benefits a boomerang kids can bring is the alleviation of the loneliness of empty-nest syndrome, helping parents with household tasks and responsibilities, or allowing parents to see grandchildren more often. Also, employed adult children can contribute to household expenses, the research said.
While pop culture may portray adult children who live at home as exploiting their parents’ resources by overstaying their welcome, the researchers found no clear evidence that boomerang children hurt their parents’ financial status, labor market outcomes, health, or life satisfaction.
“The most interesting finding is that contrary to popular depictions in the media, there isn’t a negative impact on retirement and there’s actually some positive effects of boomerang children,” said Grant Seiter, a senior research associate at the American Enterprise Institute and a researcher on the study.
The study looked at a sample of 51-year-old to 69-year-old parents. It defined a boomerang kid as an adult child under the age of 30 who returns to the parental home without being a caregiver to the parents.
Boomerang children often return home as “insurance” or as a safe haven to temporarily protect them during income or career disruptions or marital changes, Seiter said. The impact of a child returning home may depend on whether the stay is short-term or long-term.
While fathers may believe they have to work beyond age 65 because of a boomerang child, in reality they didn’t change their retirement dates and only had small decreases in life satisfaction and self-reported health. Mothers do not experience any decline in well-being, health, or wealth, the study found.
Seiter said the researchers didn’t probe why fathers and mothers answered differently.
“Everyone’s circumstances are different and everyone may experience the event differently, of course. But what we observed was different than what is usually depicted,” Seiter said.
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