Ever since the 2008 Great Recession, large numbers of young people have chosen (or been forced because of finances) to move back home and live with Mom and Dad. But according to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, nearly half of Americans who are in their 40s and 50s have a child or support an adult child and also have a parent who is 65 years older. No wonder these understandably overwhelmed people are called members of the “sandwich generation.”
Professional observers of this phenomenon refer to these households as either “intergenerational” or “multigenerational.” Back in 1980, an estimated 28 million Americans—about 12 percent of the population at that time—lived in households with at least two adult generations (or a grandparent and at least one other generation). By 2018, that figure had increased to 64 million Americans, or 20 percent of the total U.S. population.
