Boomeranging home: understanding why millennials live with parents in Toronto, Canada

Abstract

This article examines young adults’ experiences of living at home with their parents in the Greater Toronto Area. Although media frequently references co-residence as part of the trope of struggling/lazy millennial adulthood, it has received little academic attention from geographers. Co-residence offers a unique lens to understand some of the vital economic geographies of young adults, especially when set within a context of financial uncertainty, inaccessible housing markets and a job market characterized by precarious work. The research draws on a feminist economic geography framework to understand why millennials (those born between 1980 and 1995) live at home. Analysis of qualitative interviews reveals the key social structures and processes that organize and shape millennials’ experiences, including the economy, education and debt, as well as the family, culture and mutual reliance. This research highlights the role families play in the struggle to maintain a middle class social position for their children, providing insight into the complexity of young adults’ decisions to coreside with parents, where motivations of choice and constraint often overlap.