Recently released Census data has shown that from 2005 to 2009, families across the country added roughly 3.8 million extended family members to their households, through the relocation of grandparents, siblings, or other relatives. Those extended family members now make up 8.2 percent of household members nationwide, a more than 18 percent jump compared to 2005.
"Clearly, a big part of that is the economic recession and housing costs," Stephanie Coontz, co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-profit research association, told USA Today. "We're seeing a shift away from the 1950s and 1960s mentality against extended families."
The data also showed a trend away from the traditional nuclear family. In 2009, more than half of people between the ages of 25 to 34 had never been married.
An increasing number of recent college graduates have also been moving home. Earlier this month the Chicago Tribune reported that sociologists had named the growing trend the "boomerang effect."
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