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Moving back in with parents boosts adults mental health

Moving back into the parents house, as many youngsters once saw an adult as a retrograde step and even something to be ashamed of. Now, a new study suggests that such a move actually improves the mental health of these “boomerang adults”, thanks in no small part to a stressful and increasingly expensive rental market.

The findings of the first study in the UK to look at the mental health impact of moving home on adult children surprised demographers at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), who were expecting to find it had the opposite effect on well-being.

Past research has found that parents experience a dip in mental health when their adult children return to live at the family home.

But the new study by ISER, part of the University of Essex, found that it was associated with improving mental health scores for their children – despite losing independence.

“We expected that probably their mental health would get worse if they had to give up their independence and that they might feel that they were falling behind their peer group and going back might seem retrograde,” said professor of population science Emily Grundy, co-authored the study with Dr Jiawei Wu. “So we were quite surprised to find that, on the contrary, their mental health seemed to improve.”

While previously moving out of the family home and living independently was seen by many as a mark of adulthood, the research shows how these signifiers are changing.

“The whole process of things that we think are important of transition to adulthood has rather shifted,” said Grundy. As well as rental costs, other factors she points to affecting young adults leaving home include people staying in education longer, getting partners and becoming parents later.

Nearly 5 million adults live with their parents, according to the 2021 UK census, a 14.7% increase from 2011.

‘Boomerang’ Moves and Young Adults’ Mental Well-being in the United Kingdom, published in Advances in Life Course Research, suggests that the so-called “boomerang generation” may find parental support beneficial – especially if it enables them to escape the stress of the private rental sector.

Between 2009 and 2020, it found 15% of the 9,714 British adults aged between 21 and 35 they studied moved back in with their parents at least once.

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