Introduction
The American society is experiencing an increase in multigenerational households. According to the US Census, the proportion of multigenerational households decreased throughout most of the twentieth century, from nearly one fourth (24%) in 1900 to 12% in 1980. Since then, however, there has been an increase in these families, with 19% of families in the USA currently representing multigenerational families. The increase spiked during the Great Recession of 2007–2009, due to economic hardship, but the number of multigenerational households has continued to increase since then.
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Researchers have attributed much of the increase since 1980 to the changing racial profile of the USA. In 1980, 20% of the US population consisted of racial and ethnic minorities; today it has almost doubled (37%), largely due to immigration. Racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to have multigenerational households (Keene and Batson 2010). While only 13% of White households are...
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References
Ellis, R. R., & Simmons, T. (2014). Coresident grandparents and their grandchildren: 2012. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.
Fry, R., & Passel, J. S. (2014). In post-recession era, young adults drive continuing rise in multi-generational living. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
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Keene, J. R., & Batson, C. D. (2010). Under one roof: A review of research on intergenerational coresidence and multigenerational households in the United States. Sociology Compass, 4, 642–657.
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Miller, R.B., Nebeker-Adams, C.A. (2019). Multigenerational Households. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_492
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_492
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