Precarity, Class, and Parental Coresidence: Evidence Amidst the UK Cost-of-Living Crisis

Vincent Jerald Ramos, Centre for Population Change / University of Southampton
Ann M. Berrington, University of Southampton

While rates of parental coresidence have been rising gradually over time in the UK, periods of macroeconomic uncertainty such as the 2021-23 cost-of-living crisis are likely to have accelerated this increase. This paper examines how underexplored types of employment precarity (e.g., underemployment and temporary and agency work) are associated with parental coresidence. Extending the feathered nest/gilded cage hypothesis, the paper further analyzes how parental class moderates this relationship across the transition to adulthood phase, driven by competing protective and propellant motives. Estimating logistic regression models using select waves (2021-23) of the UK Labour Force Survey, we demonstrate the association between precarity and coresidence, and probe heterogeneities by sex, age, and parental social class. Three results are worth noting. First, apart from unemployment, labour underutilization (underemployment) and impermanence (temporary and agency work) are associated with a higher probability of parental coresidence than stable employment. Second, parental social class moderates this relationship such that the positive precarity-coresidence association is most pronounced for young adults with service-class parents. Finally, our results support a refined feathered nest/gilded cage hypothesis whereby (higher) parental resources facilitate coresidence at younger phases of adulthood transitions, especially for unemployed and precariously employed adult children, but tapers off with age.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Older Adults and Intergenerational Relations, Human Capital, Education, and Work

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