Young Adults’ Household Formation: Individualization, Identity and Home

Abstract

Increasing numbers of 20- and 30-something young adults in the UK are rejecting early partnership formation, and are instead living alone or in multi-adult shared households unconnected by marriage, co-habitation or family ties (Bynner et al. 1997; Jones 1995; McRae 1999). Similar shifts have been observed in the USA and across Northern Europe (Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1993; European Commission 1997). Sociological explanations for such changes have largely focused on the determining influence of structural economic factors on the housing options available to young adults. In line with a decrease in the welfare benefits available for young people over the 1980s and 1990s, the growing insecurities of the youth labour market have been argued to disrupt or fracture transitions to adulthood, and to create prolonged periods of dependency on parents and guardians (see, for example, Coles 1995; Hutson and Jenkins, 1989; Jones 1995; Roberts 1993). Reflecting the predominant cultural belief that home is somehow less authentic and meaningful if an individual lives with his or her peers into adulthood (Anthony 1993; Somerville 1997), those living in shared houses are viewed as experiencing an extended transitional period of ‘making do’, where adulthood is placed ‘on hold’ until a truly independent adult home can be established. Yet this assumes that young adults’ expectations and ideals of housing are static and remain the same as those of previous generations, despite the changing reality of their housing careers. What has not been considered in the same detail is what such changing housing experiences signify to those involved.