Report: More multi-generation households

WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- More U.S. residents are living in multi-generational family households, a report released Thursday said.

While the recession has driven many families together, the increase is also a result of long-term demographic shifts, the Pew Research Center said. Those include young people marrying later and remaining with parents until they do and a reversal of the trend of older adults living on their own.

In 2008, 49 million people, or about 16 percent of the U.S. population, lived in multi-generational households. Among those over 65, the percentage was 20 percent, up from 17 percent in 1990.

About 20 percent of people over 65 are now living in multi-generational households, the report said. In 1980 and 1990, only 17 percent did so.

The percentage of adults ages 25 to 34 living in multi-generational households almost doubled between 1980 and 2008 from 11 percent to 20 percent.

Whites are the group least likely to have more than one adult generation under the same roof at 13 percent. Among Hispanics, 22 percent are in multi-generational households, while the rates are 23 percent for blacks and 25 percent for Asian-Americans.

Rates for all four groups jumped between 2006 and 2008 as the economy faltered.