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Historical Trends in Children Living in Multigenerational Households in the United States: 1870–2018

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Demography

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the share of U.S. children under age 18 who live in a multigenerational household (with a grandparent and parent) has increased dramatically. Yet we do not know whether this increase is a recent phenomenon or a return to earlier levels of coresidence. Using data from the decennial census from 1870 to 2010 and the 2018 American Community Survey, we examine historical trends in children’s multigenerational living arrangements, differences by race/ethnicity and education, and factors that explain the observed trends. We find that in 2018, 10% of U.S. children lived in a multigenerational household, a return to levels last observed in 1950. The current increase in multigenerational households began in 1980, when only 5% of children lived in such a household. Few differences in the prevalence of multigenerational coresidence by race/ethnicity or education existed in the early part of the twentieth century; racial/ethnic and education differences in coresidence are a more recent phenomena. Decomposition analyses do little to explain the decline in coresidence between 1940 and 1980, suggesting that unmeasured factors explain the decrease. Declines in marriage and in the share of White children most strongly explained the increase in multigenerational coresidence between 1980 and 2018. For White children with highly educated parents, factors explaining the increase in coresidence differ from other groups. Our findings suggest that the links between race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status and multigenerational coresidence have changed over time, and today the link between parental education and coresidence varies within racial/ethnic groups.

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Data Availability

The data sets generated and analyzed for the current study are available through IPUMS USA, usa.ipums.org.

Notes

  1. Although many older adults likely live with grandchildren, the average U.S. grandparent is 64 years old (authors’ calculations based on the SIPP 2009). Median age at the transition to grandparenthood in the United States is 49 for women and 52 for men (Leopold and Skopek 2015). Nearly three-fourths of multigenerational grandparents are under 65, compared with about one-half of all grandparents (Ellis and Simmons 2014; Stykes et al. 2014). Thus, previous historical work focusing on the elderly likely excludes many multigenerational children.

  2. The 1870 and 1940 estimates are for White women; Black women had higher total fertility rates, at about 7.5 and 3, respectively (Ruggles 2003).

  3. Economic independence of the middle generation may particularly influence multigenerational coresidence. Ruggles (2003, 2007) showed that the decline in intergenerational coresidence among the elderly in the early part of the twentieth century was largely driven by economic opportunities of adult children, not by the economic independence of the eldest generation.

  4. The exception is 1890, for which data are not available. Sample sizes range from 1% to 10% of the population, depending on the year.

  5. Because the IPUMS imputed household relationships in 1870, these estimates may be less precise than other estimates.

  6. We privilege the parent pointers to identify children’s parents rather than the relationship to the reference person variable. We do this to avoid erroneously calling a child’s aunt/uncle their parent.

  7. We follow census definitions of multigenerational households (Ellis and Simmons 2014; Kreider and Ellis 2011). Thus, our estimates of coresidence are lower than those using the IPUMS MULTGEN variable, which categorizes children at the household level. This approach distinguishes the experience of a skipped-generation child (grandparent, no parent) from a multigenerational child (who has their parent present) because research suggests that these children’s experiences are very different (e.g., Dunifon 2018; Pilkauskas and Dunifon 2016).

  8. Our decomposition analyses include parental fertility (number of coresident children) and generational length (age at birth), which may influence multigenerational coresidence. However, grandparent availability is not captured in the decompositions, which is shaped by their own fertility, longevity, and generational length.

  9. In 2018, about two-thirds of multigenerational households were matrilineal, and historically rates were closer to 50% (authors’ calculations).

  10. The pattern (peak in 1950, valley 1980, return by 2018) is nearly identical to the pattern shown in Fig. 1 when plotted at the household level, although the prevalence is about 1 percentage point higher at each observation (available upon request).

  11. Table A1 in the online appendix shows these descriptive statistics by race/ethnicity and educational attainment.

  12. These analyses are restricted to children who live with at least one parent; thus, estimates of multigenerational prevalence differ slightly from the figures.

  13. Income is not included in the decompositions because it was not available in 1940 and for parsimony. An analysis including income in the later decomposition increased the percentage explained (from 1.9 percentage points to 2.2 percentage points) but did not change the other substantive findings.

  14. We also observe the education crossover with earlier years of the ACS (e.g., 2014, 2015, or 2016).

  15. We divide the sample by the 50th percentile for simplicity, but trends and conclusions hold if we divide the sample into quartiles (see Fig. A1, online appendix).

  16. Differences between the top and bottom groups were less than half a percentage point in most years post-1990.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Martha Bailey, Matthew Hall, Daniel Lichter, and Ashton Verdery for input on methods and content.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, 735 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Natasha V. Pilkauskas

  2. Department of Sociology, Washington State University, 207 Wilson-Short, Pullman, WA, 99163, USA

    Mariana Amorim

  3. College of Human Ecology, Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, 1300 F Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853, USA

    Rachel E. Dunifon

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  1. Natasha V. Pilkauskas
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Contributions

All authors made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study. Data preparation and analyses were primarily performed by Mariana Amorim. Some coding and analyses were conducted by Natasha Pilkauskas. Natasha Pilkauskas took the lead on drafting the article. Mariana Amorim and Rachel Dunifon wrote the first draft of sections of the article. All authors read and edited all drafts of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Natasha V. Pilkauskas.

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Pilkauskas, N.V., Amorim, M. & Dunifon, R.E. Historical Trends in Children Living in Multigenerational Households in the United States: 1870–2018. Demography 57, 2269–2296 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00920-5

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