Changing perceptions of family: A study of multigenerational households in Australia

Abstract

Many people around the world live in households with multiple generations of related adults (multigenerational households). While more prominent in certain cultures, multigenerational living is also an important part of the lives of millions in societies where this arrangement has not been seen as ‘the norm’. Australia is one such case, where one in five people live in a multigenerational household. This article presents findings of a research project on multigenerational households in Australia, including a survey of 392 people, 21 diaries and 21 follow-up interviews to explore how multigenerational household members understand their own experiences of living together. It focuses particularly on whether they feel multigenerational living is a socially accepted living arrangement. The article concludes with a discussion about how these experiences and understandings of multigenerational family members may reflect changing social norms regarding the form and role of families in Australian society.

Keywords

Australia dependence family multigenerational social norms

This article draws on findings of a three-year research project on multigenerational households in Australia. It focuses on the reflections of the research participants about their experiences of living in a multigenerational household and whether this household form has become more accepted over time. This question is important because the social acceptability of multigenerational living affects the everyday lives and wellbeing of people who live in multigenerational households. This is no insignificant number of people; one in five people in Australia currently live in a multigenerational household made up of two or more generations of related adults. If these people are stigmatised, then this will impact upon their health and wellbeing and their relationships with other family members.

This question is also important because of its implications for the uptake of multigenerational living arrangements in the future and the resulting impact on the ability of families to provide financial, practical and social supports to household members. Australian government policies, like those in many other western countries, increasingly rely on the family to provide support in place of the state.

The majority of the academic literature on multigenerational living to date has focused on the implications of this living arrangement for financial and other support provided within the family. Much of this interest has centred on the delayed home-leaving of young adults, particularly the reasons for this change (e.g. Flatau et al., 2007) and also the financial implications for older generations in these households (e.g. Cobb-Clark, 2008). International research on multigenerational households in western countries has also largely focused on delayed home-leaving (e.g. Iacovou, 2010 in Europe) and financial implications (e.g. CMF, 2014 in the UK).

Interestingly, while interest in multigenerational living has increased in Australian academic and policy circles, this does not reflect a rapid increase in multigenerational living. In fact, similar proportions of the population have lived in multigenerational households since at least the mid 1980s. A likely reason why multigenerational households have received little attention to date is that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) does not report on multigenerational households as a distinct household form, making analysis more difficult. In this article, we report on customised cross-tabulations purchased from the ABS to overcome this limitation.

Given that such a large proportion of the population lives in multigenerational households, and these households have been relatively neglected in academic and policy literature despite being a common part of Australian society for at least 30 years, it is timely to consider how people who live in multigenerational households understand their experiences of living together.

The article begins with a summary of recent sociological research on the family. It then presents a summary of the study approach and methods followed by detailed information about multigenerational households in Australia. The remainder of the article considers whether the research participants felt that multigenerational living is an accepted household form in Australian society and the implications of these findings. While this research was undertaken in Australia, the findings will be of interest in other countries where multigenerational living is also not viewed as traditional, yet is nevertheless receiving increased recognition as an important household form.

Sociology of the family

For the past half-century, there have been debates within sociology about ‘the family’. Over that period, there has been a move away from seeing the family as an institution (the family) towards a focus on the practices of families (what people do in their family life) and the importance of emotion in these practices (e.g. Morgan, 2011). There has also been a shift in focus from examining the importance and functioning of ‘nuclear’ and ‘extended’ families towards an increasing recognition of family diversity and complexity (e.g. Farrell et al., 2012; Widmer, 2010).

Gilding (2010: 760) explains that within sociological research on the family, there has been a move to recognising ‘reflexivity over and above convention’. Conservative family sociologists have despaired at the decline of the family as a social institution, while critical accounts have welcomed ‘the decline of patriarchal and heteronormative institutions’ (Gilding, 2010: 760); yet both sides have recognised reflexivity (in the form of deinstitutionalisation, individualisation, and new forms of connectedness and embeddedness) over conventional understandings of the family.

However, some family sociologists have recently called for recognition of the importance of convention as well as reflexivity in understanding families. These academics (e.g. Gilding 2010 and Liefbroer and Billari, 2010) recognise the continued influence of social norms and constraints on the timing, sequencing and frequency of life transitions (such as the institutions of marriage, monogamy and childbirth) and resulting implications for household formation and living arrangements without over-prioritising individualisation and personal choice. As Gilding (2010: 774) explains:

the family is best understood as an institutional regime; that is, an assemblage of institutions, configured in different ways in different places at different times. This framework […] provides a vehicle to understand the dynamics of family relationships and practices, giving due weight to both their reflexive reconfiguration on the one hand, and their institutional embeddedness on the other.

In many ways, this debate parallels the longstanding discussion in sociology around the relative importance of structure and agency, where the reflexive approach to the family can be seen to prioritise agency, while conventional approaches prioritise structure. The approach we have taken in this project is to recognise the importance of both agency and structure in understanding family life.

Method

This article reports on selected findings from a larger project examining multigenerational households in the two Australian cities of Sydney and Brisbane. The aim of the research was to determine the principal drivers of the prevalence of multigenerational households in these cities and how they affect the day-to-day lives of families. The research included:

Statistical analysis of custom cross-tabulations over the period 1986–2011 from the ABS with socio-demographic information about multigenerational households in Sydney and Brisbane.

A detailed online survey of 392 people¹ living in multigenerational households in Sydney and Brisbane undertaken between August 2012 and July 2013. The survey asked about the respondents’ history of living together (how long they have lived together; the timing of the arrangement; whether the offspring had previously left home but since then returned), their reasons for living together, satisfaction with their current arrangement, their reasons for (dis)satisfaction, and their preferred living arrangements for the long term. A series of demographic questions were also asked, including the age, birthplace, ancestry, education, employment and occupational status of household members, household size and household composition. The survey was made available in English, Arabic, Simplified Chinese and Spanish, and was promoted in 11 local and migrant newspapers as well as in the 50Something magazine for seniors, the Gumtree online classifieds paper, and online by the Tenants Union New South Wales, the University of Queensland and the University of New South Wales. People who self-identified as members of multigenerational households opted in to complete the survey. This meant that multigenerational households that did not meet our definition as stipulated for the census analysis also completed the survey, including those with members of their household living in ancillary dwellings such as granny flats, as well as households where no members of the youngest generation were over 18 years old. All returned surveys were in English, though the responding households represented a diverse range of cultural backgrounds (see Table 1).

Diaries completed by survey respondents who agreed to continue with the research, detailing their thoughts about, and experiences of living in, a multigenerational household over a four-week period. A total of 21 diaries were received from 15 households during August and September 2013.

In-depth interviews with survey respondents who agreed to continue with the research, including most of those who completed the diaries. A total of 21 interviews were conducted with members of 18 households between October 2013 and February 2014. Four of the interviews included multiple participants.

Table 1.

Cultural diversity of survey respondents and other members of their household.

	Sydney	Brisbane	Total
Top 5 primary ancestries
Australian	35%	56%	42%
East Asian	17%	4%	13%
Western European	11%	13%	12%
South-East Asian	11%	2%	8%
South Asian	8%	4%	6%
Other	18%	21%	19%
n*	998	469	1467
Top 5 brithplaces
Australia	56%	73%	62%
China	7%	2%	5%
UK	4%	6%	4%
Vietnam	4%	0%	3%
Hong Kong	4%	1%	3%
Other	26%	19%	23%
n*	852	435	1287
Top 5 languages spoken at home
English	65%	87%	72%
Cantonese	9%	2%	6%
Mandarin	5%	1%	3%
Other Chinese languages	4%	1%	3%
Vietnamese	4%	0%	3%
Other	14%	9%	12%
n*	992	471	1463

Note: Respondents were asked their, and other household members’ (for up to 10 members), primary ancestry, birthplace and languages spoken at home. % based on total number of responses.

This article draws largely from the results of the diaries and interviews. However, the survey results are referenced where these provide supporting information for the issues raised in the diaries and interviews.

An important limitation of this article is that perceptions of social norms regarding the family and the acceptability of multigenerational living were drawn only from the experiences of people living in multigenerational households. Nonetheless, the experiences and understandings of multigenerational household members about how they feel others see their living arrangements provide a rich and informed view of social change in this context.

Multigenerational households in Australia

In 2011, over 4 million people in Australia were living in a multigenerational household. That is, one in five Australians lived in a dwelling where two or more generations of related adults (where the oldest of the youngest generation is aged 18 or over) were living together. This definition follows the many common academic descriptions of multigenerational household forms; including young adults delaying their first home-leaving, or an elderly parent joining their adult child’s family household for reasons of care. We acknowledge some multigenerational household forms will be omitted from these figures, such as three-generational households where no household member of the youngest generation (i.e. grandchildren) has turned 18. Additionally, residents of secondary dwellings such as granny flats are counted as separate households, and as such any households where some members live in a granny flat are also excluded from the census analysis. As the construction of secondary dwellings in Australian cities was not permissible until relatively recently, there are likely to be few households excluded from our analysis for this reason. This definition thus accounts for the majority of multigenerational households, although we acknowledge that it still likely provides an undercount of all multigenerational households.

The proportion of the total population living in multigenerational households has changed little since 1986. While the number of people living in multigenerational households increased by almost one million (30%) between 1986 and 2011, the population as a whole increased by 34%. However, the growth of multigenerational households has not been uniform across the country and in some areas their growth has outstripped population growth. For example, the number of multigenerational households in Sydney increased by 44% between 1986 and 2011, outstripping the city’s household growth of 40%.

Large proportions of multigenerational households are middle-aged couples (45–54 years old) living with their young adult children (18–24 years old) (see Figure 1) . However, this does not simply reflect young people staying at home for longer and studying while ‘living off’ their parents. While a third of all 18–29-year-olds live in a multigenerational household, only 30% are dependent students² and 70% are non-dependents. There are also three-generation multigenerational households (where a member of the youngest generation is aged over 18), and households where the youngest generation is in their 30s or 40s.

Figure 1.

Household breakdown: Multigenerational households and other family households, Australia 2011.

Some people living in multigenerational households have moved to Australia from countries and regions where multigenerational living is common. For example, 35% of Australians born in North Africa and the Middle East and 28% of Australians born in South East Asia lived in multigenerational households in 2011 (see Figure 2). This may provide a partial explanation as to why the growth in multigenerational households has been greater in Sydney, which has the largest overseas-born population in Australia, with many migrants from South East Asia (ABS, 2014). However, three-quarters of all multigenerational household residents in Australia were born in Oceania (mainly Australia but also New Zealand and other Pacific island countries; see Figure 3).

Figure 2.

Percentage of the population born in each region who live in a multigenerational household in Australia, 2011.

Figure 3.

Percentage of total Australian population who live in a multigenerational household born in each region, 2011.

While changes in the acceptance of multigenerational living are likely to be influenced by the changing cultural makeup of Australia’s cities, available evidence indicates that this is not the sole reason for this change. In their analysis of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey dataset, Flatau et al. (2007) found that even after controlling for education, family background and ethnicity there has been a gradual increase in the age of offspring when they first leave the parental home in Australia. Indeed, our census analysis shows significant absolute increases in the 45-54 (+307,201), 55-64 (+201,193), 25-34 (+146,806) and 20-24 (+143,488) age groups between 1986 and 2011; the next most sizeable absolute increase was for the 75+ age group (+79,434). Because of the more sizeable increases in the older age groups, however, slight proportional decreases were noticed for the 18-19 and 20-24 age groups (Figure 4). These numbers indicate that the dominate family arrangement of multigenerational households in 2011 being middle-aged parents and adult children in their early 20s to early 30s, unlike in 1986 when younger age groups in each generation were more readily represented. This shift is particularly important among young adults aged in their late 20s and early 30s at the time at which Flatau et al. (2007) conducted their analysis (the mid 2000s, and therefore prior to the global financial crisis, which some writers argue further delayed some young adults’ first home-leaving). They suggest that broader changes in norms and values have influenced these changed household outcomes.

Figure 4.

Change in percentage of persons living in multigenerational and total households by age group, Australia, 1986–2011.

Is multigenerational living accepted in Australia?

The analysis of the census data indicated that multigenerational living is common. This raises the question of how people who live in multigenerational households understand their own living arrangement, and what this might tell us about changing social expectations regarding the form and role of families.

To address this question, the article focuses on the research participants’ reflections of multigenerational households as a socially accepted living arrangement, and how this was perceived to have changed over time. Interviewees were asked whether they believed that multigenerational living was accepted. Some participants also wrote about this issue in their diaries. Their reflections on this topic were mixed.

The case of yes

Some of the research participants said they believed multigenerational households were accepted in contemporary Australian society. Some parents who had adult children living with them said they thought this was influenced by their more relaxed attitude to parenting compared with that of older generations:

I think that because my generation are probably a lot more easy-going and a lot more modern … it’s a lot different than when I was the age of my daughter.… I just think we’re a lot more easy-going and open to the relationships and the lives that our kids are leading.… It’s not everybody but I think that in general it is, it’s just a much more accepting society that we live in. (QLD422I, 40s, F, young adult/middle-aged parents, young adult never left, Anglo-Australian)³

Parents of my generation, my husband’s generation are maybe a little bit more relaxed when it comes to their children. Like, I know that my parents.… They were very, very strict, and parents of that generation were. (NSW222I, late 40s, F, young adult/middle-aged parents, young adult never left, second-generation western European-Australian)

These arguments are supported by Campbell and Gilmore’s (2007: 141) questionnaire on parenting practices with 560 Australian parents, which found evidence of ‘a socio-cultural shift from more authoritarian to more democratic child rearing practices’. Similar findings have also been reported in other western countries (e.g. Trifan et al., 2014 in Sweden).

Others explained that they thought multigenerational living was more widely accepted because it is now more common, especially as a result of the financial difficulties the younger generation faces in affording independent living (Cobb-Clark and Gørgens, 2012; Kahn et al., 2013), particularly if they are still studying:

Well incomes aren’t proportionate to the price to buy a house. You can’t do it. You cannot live on an income and pay a mortgage, it doesn’t balance out and I have every expectation that my girls will never leave home because it’s too expensive and they won’t be able to afford to leave home. I’m alright with that. I think it’s more common, a lot more common especially at uni. They’re mostly young. They’re all living at home, no one cares, no one’s oh my god I can’t believe you’re still living at home. It’s just expected, normal. (QLD425I, 30s, F, three-generation, older ‘child’ and grandchildren boomeranged,⁴ Anglo-Australian)

I think it’s not feasible for most families to move their children out straight away especially if they’re not going into the workforce full time. If they’re doing any sort of study whether it’s an apprenticeship or like tertiary education it’s way too expensive. (QLD432I, 20s, F, young adult/middle-aged parent, young adult boomeranged, Anglo-Australian)

Certainly, among the survey participants, financial considerations, including the financial barriers faced by young people moving out of the family home, played a large role in their reasons for living in a multigenerational household. Asked in an open-ended question, Figure 5 presents the back-coded reasons survey respondents gave for living in a multigenerational household.

Figure 5.

What are the reasons that prompted multiple generations of your family to live together? (n = 392, multiple responses allowed).

While financial considerations were the most common reason given for living in a multigenerational household (43%), few noted this as the sole reason (16%). The majority who said financial considerations were a driver also said their decisions to live together were influenced by other reasons (63%), notably continuing or returning to education, and providing care and support to other household members.

These findings are also supported by responses to another survey question that asked people to indicate to what extent they agreed with a series of statements, presented in Figure 6. This finding is in contrast to existing studies on multigenerational households in other countries (Gee et al., 2003; Izuhara, 2005), which highlighted cultural backgrounds rather than financial considerations were as a more significant influence in people’s decisions regarding the timing of first home-leaving and living in a multigenerational arrangement. While 39% of our survey respondents agreed that it was traditional in their cultural background to live this way (Figure 6), only 6% said it was for cultural reasons that they did so (Figure 5).

Figure 6.

Please indicate how strongly you agree/disagree with the following … (n = 392).

The case of no

While some research participants believed that multigenerational living has become more common (or at least is spoken about more), others said it was not necessarily more accepted. For example, this interviewee who is purchasing her home with her single mother explained:

It’s either more common or it’s [that] you talk about it a bit more. Like you would know more people because they will admit to living at home, but I don’t think it’s any more accepted. Like when I tell people that I still live at home, they will look down at me, like, ‘Are you not smart enough to move out?’ ‘You can’t afford it or you’re just living off your parents’ kind of thing. So that’s really hard to take. (QLD441I, 20s, F, young adult/middle-aged single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-New Zealander)

This issue was elaborated in her diary:

I think the majority of society, in Brisbane/Australia, has a set perception of adults who live with their parents/remain in the family home, and that this hasn’t become more acceptable, even if it seems to be more widely practised. I often get comments like ‘Aren’t you lucky’ and ‘Wish I still lived at home and didn’t have to do anything’ which I find pretty hurtful and offensive … (QLD441-D, 20s, F, young adult/middle-aged single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-New Zealander)

Another interviewee of an older generation made a similar observation:

I think it’s become possibly more common, but I don’t think it’s more accepted … I know a lot of it’s got to do with culture and stuff like that, but I think in Australian society and culture – I don’t think it’s really accepted. I think it’s definitely become more common because of the financial pressures.… It seems to be more common because of the lack of jobs, and the high cost in rent … (QLD430I, 30s, F, three-generation, older parent moved in, Anglo-Australian)

The case of yes, on condition that …

Other research participants clarified their response by explaining that they considered multigenerational living to be more accepted only in some circumstances. For households where the older generation had moved in with the younger generation, some participants noted that outsiders would often consider their multigenerational arrangement strange.

I grew up in Vanuatu and people live as a family, your extended family.… So it wasn’t such a big shock or a big change for me… it was just what people do … it’s a cultural thing to do.… People or my friends or people I work with ask me do your in-laws live with you. I say yeah they do and there’s a shocked look on their face like ‘Really, how do you cope with that?’ I say ‘Well we just get on with it.’ (QLD428I, 30s, M, three-generation, Anglo-Australian in-laws moved in, Pacific Islander)

This was especially the case where there was not an obvious need for the older generation to live with them, such as illness or widowhood.

I think if there was an obvious medical reason like yeah mum has to live with us because she’s got diabetes or something that would be just really obvious. But I think … it’s just not within their sphere of recognition or whatever … you can’t just want to, you’ve got to have a clear cut reason for it and then it’s acceptable. (QLD428I, 30s, F, three-generation, older parents moved in, Anglo-Australian)

What I have seen as being more acceptable are when one parent often times dies or is incapacitated, the other parent will move in with the couple to survive, because they can’t do it on their own. (QLD423I, 60s, F, three-generation, moved in with adult ‘child’, Anglo-American)

In the case of young adults living with their parents, discussions about acceptability of these living arrangements often focused on the life stages in which it was acceptable for adults to remain financially dependent on their parents.

So when you’re still studying, it’s okay to live at home still. But once you’re earning – once you’re working full time and earning your wage, I think that’s when you start looking at, OK, I need to move, I need to purchase property, I need to actually get on with my life now. (QLD446I, 20s, F, young adult/middle-aged single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-Australian)

However, it is not the case that all adult children living with their parents are financially dependent. In some cases, young adults were responsible for financially contributing to the upkeep or even purchase of their home. For example, the young participant quoted earlier who was purchasing her home with her mother explained the assumption that younger people who live in multigenerational households are dependent on their parents can lead to frustration.

I find the biggest drawbacks or negative aspect of living in a multigenerational household are actually external to the household/family. Specifically, other people’s perceptions.… I find that when I tell people – of all different ages or backgrounds – that I ‘live at home’ or with my mum, they immediately presume that what I mean is that I live off my parent’s charity and everything is done for me, that I’m some kind of adult-sized child. It’s super irritating, considering that my family home has evolved into more of a share house/flat style of living arrangement with shared/divided household duties, dinners, and purchases. What is especially annoying is that it’s rude and inappropriate to explain that actually I own more of the house than mum, have put more money into up-grading and maintaining it – like with kitchen renovations and a new hot water cylinder being paid for by me – and I have paid all the rates so far. (QLD441D, 20s, F, young adult/middle-aged single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-New Zealander, original emphasis)

Reflecting these findings in the US context, Niederhaus and Graham (2013: 240) note that both older family members living with their children, and young adults living with their parents in multigenerational households ‘suffer from the cultural stigma of “dependence”’, but in reality they may more likely be interdependent. It is also important to recognise that there are different types of support that they can receive from family members, including emotional support and general company.

My daughter who is studying is financially dependent upon parents to provide food and lodging, car and pocket money. We pay all bills. I am dependent upon her to help with chores, shopping and for social stimulus at home and technology trouble shooting. We have great discussions on all issues and many laughs and a few tears. (QLD 422D, 40s, F, young adult/middle-aged parents, young adult never left, Anglo-Australian)

I am happy for her or both of them to stay here as long as they want to. I have plenty of room here and she is a big help both physically – helping to pick up the kids and helping with cooking and cleaning up – and good company and emotional support. (QLD 426D, 50s, F, young adult/middle-aged single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-Australian)

However, results from the survey suggest that in many cases the oldest generation was more likely to provide support than the younger generations (see Figure 7). The contrast is especially stark where direct and indirect financial supports are concerned, highlighting the stronger financial position the oldest generation may be in within their households.

Figure 7.

Who usually provides the following types of support in your household? (n = 392).

Shifting social norms about family

From the above descriptions, it seems as though there has been a shift in normalised ideas surrounding the form and function of family as this relates to multigenerational households. However, this does not seem to be a case of universal acceptance. The degree to which multigenerational households are accepted or normalised relies in part on the reasons for multigenerational living and the form and nature of the household.

The discourses around acceptability are tied up with notions of dependence and individualism. In cases where one or more household member is dependent on others – for example when a younger family member is studying, or when an older family member is ill – then multigenerational living is considered acceptable. However, in cases where dependence is not essential – for example when a younger person has a job or when an older person is physically capable of independent living – such a living arrangement is seen to be less accepted. It appears to be especially unacceptable if a family member can financially afford independent living but chooses to enjoy a multigenerational family life instead, as is the case for the young woman who is sharing a mortgage with her mother. Her continuing to live with her parent is pathologised as a ‘failure’, and this ‘failure’ is outwardly perceived by others as financial dependence on her mother. In part this appears to result from normalised ideas about dependence, in particular the assumption that an adult ‘child’ will be dependent on their middle-aged parents and an elderly parent will be dependent on their adult children within a family context, when in fact this is not necessarily the case.

These findings suggest that in the case of multigenerational living the de-institutionalisation thesis among family sociologists may be overstated. It seems that only some forms of family flexibility – those arrangements entered into in order to support a dependent family member – are fully legitimised in the case of multigenerational households in Australia. Others – such as a desire to embrace feelings of connectedness between generations for their own sake – are less well understood. Put another way, structural reasons for multigenerational living (provision of care, availability of employment, affordability of housing etc.) are legitimised, while agentic reasons (such as a desire for close personal relationships) are seen as less legitimate. For the remainder of this section, we discuss these structural reasons in more depth, in order to better understand why this shift in normalised ideas around the form and function of the family has occurred in those cases where a member of the family is dependent on others. If we are to understand the family as an ‘institutional regime’ (Gilding, 2010) then we can start to examine how ideas of the family can change in response to social, technological and economic change (Eichler, 1988).

In the interviews and diaries, people spoke in particular about the constraints of housing affordability in Sydney and Brisbane, and the influence of public policy decisions about areas of family significance – notably higher education, child care and aged care.

Housing affordability

Many research participants noted that housing was much less affordable for young people to rent or buy than it was for older generations when they were at the same life stage. These observations are partly supported by recent Australian research (Burke et al., 2014) that found a decline in home ownership for younger households over the 30 years from 1981 to 2011. However, this study also found that much of this decline occurred during the period 1981–91 and home purchase rates have actually increased for younger households since 1991. At the same time, the ability to achieve outright ownership at an early age has declined, likely related to the availability of longer-term mortgaging arrangements. Burke et al. (2014: 1) do note, however, that since 2001 ‘certain types of younger households’, such as single-income and low to moderate-income households, have been less able to buy a home.

Concurrently, private rental has also presented itself to be a less attractive housing option for young adults. While the private rental market was traditionally seen as a transitional tenure for younger households, as Stone et al. (2013: 6) argue, changes in migration and international education policies, contraction of the social housing sector as well as socio-cultural changes such as greater female workforce participation have significantly increased the demand for private rental properties. This increased demand was accompanied by significant increases in rent, making it a less affordable option for young adults (Stone et al., 2013: 20).

Many of our research participants said that concern over the affordability of housing was a major reason why multigenerational living was common, and for some, why they thought it was more acceptable than in the past.

People can’t afford to move out, so unless you have double income, and you really want to have a mortgage and set up a house and a life in the same house in the suburbs somewhere, more and more people I guess, that I meet now, are either living at home or in some arrangement where they pay less rent or are negotiating a mortgage or something, because it’s too hard to afford to live out of home. (QLD444I, 30s, F, young adult/older parents, young adult boomeranged, Anglo-Australian)

I don’t think there’s stigma. I think certainly maybe 10–20 years ago, there was a bit of that stigma but these days, I think it’s pretty accepted that the housing market is tough to get into … and everyone that I speak to that rents wishes that they could buy but their rent is just too high for them to save anything. (QLD446I, 20s, F, young adult/older single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-Australian)

Public policy decisions

The reduction in government support in Australia in almost all areas of life was also raised by some participants as a reason for multigenerational living.

I think it’s really different from when I was young. Because when I was young, I actually left home when I was 18 or something like that. But then we had a student allowance.… I didn’t have to work when I was studying. So it was really a different kind of situation. Now they’ve got HECS⁵ debt and … they’re trying to work and they’re trying to do all these things. It’s really a very different situation. So I think it’s financially, things are just not the same. Because of that, society has to change as well to accommodate that. (QLD426I, 50s, F, young adult/middle-aged single parent, young adult never left, Anglo-Australian)

One participant said that they thought this change away from government support and towards a greater reliance on the family to provide support would pose a challenge for many Australians.

I guess most people don’t have the skills, because it’s not really a part of Australian culture to [live in] a multigenerational household.… So people don’t have the skills or the knowledge of how to deal with it. So we grow up thinking that we can rely on aged care homes and the public health system … but we can’t trust them now. Now we see that you can’t rely on these services. (QLD444I, 30s, F, young adult/older parents, young adult boomeranged, Anglo-Australian)

Indeed, government policies that have reduced welfare for individuals and required a greater reliance on the family for support seem to be having an impact on the way in which these multigenerational household members think about family, and the way in which they think their living arrangements are seen by others. Notable examples in Australia include the deinstitutionalisation of care and a reduction in government support for people with a disability (Wiesel and Bigby, 2015), the promotion of ageing in place as a strategy to address aged care (Olsberg and Winters, 2005) and means testing of government support for students based on their parents’ income until the age of 21 (Australian Government, 2015).

Conclusion

It appears that the social acceptance of multigenerational living is not complete, and that acceptance of this living arrangement is relative to the reasons for, and circumstances of, multigenerational living. The concept of ‘dependence’ plays an important role in determining acceptability. In those cases where it is considered appropriate for family members to be dependent on others – for example, where they require care and support due to illness or disability, or financial support to enable them to study or save for a home deposit – multigenerational living is considered more acceptable. Situations such as these can be expected to arise more frequently as governments withdraw services for the young, the elderly and the unemployed who will increasingly need to rely on their families. However, multigenerational households who are living together because they want to, because they enjoy each other’s company, or because it makes financial sense to pool resources as a family, do not appear to be so well understood or accepted.

This suggests that social expectations around the form and role of families are changing relatively rapidly in response to the increased need for families to provide support as governments withdraw from this function. However, changing social norms regarding individualism and the role of the family in social relationships (beyond support for dependants) are not changing at an equal pace and multigenerational families who live together not because they have to, but because they want to, still face some discrimination.

In the language of the family studies debates, what we are witnessing is an increased recognition in society of the impact of structural factors (notably housing affordability, increased educational participation into adulthood and policies encouraging home-based care of the elderly and differently abled by the family rather than the state) on the form and function of the family, and multigenerational family households in particular. However, at the same time, we are seeing less recognition of the important role played by the agency of individuals who choose to live in multigenerational households for reasons other than those considered ‘acceptable’ as a result of structural changes.

In most cases, a combination of choice and necessity (or at least practicality) drives people’s decisions to live in a multigenerational household. However, based on the interviews and diaries of participants in this research, we can conclude that multigenerational living appears to have become more accepted in those situations where it is seen to result more from necessity than choice. This suggests that there is still a long way to go in Australia before multigenerational living, in all of its forms, is normalised.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks to those people who gave their time to share their experiences of multigenerational living with us through participating in the survey, interview and diary exercises. An earlier version of this article was presented at The Australian Sociological Association Conference in 2014, and we would like to thank colleagues in the audience for their thoughtful comments.

Funding

The research reported in this paper was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme [project number DP120100956].

Notes

Biographical notes

Hazel Easthope is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at UNSW Australia’s City Futures Research Centre. She has background in sociology, anthropology and human geography, and has a strong research track record in urban studies. She has a particular research interest in residential decision-making and the intersections between mobility, identity and home.

Edgar Liu is a Research Fellow at UNSW Australia’s City Futures Research Centre. He has background in cultural and human geography, with research interests spanning a number of sub-disciplines within the social sciences: family forms, public policy changes, social impacts of urban renewal, and access to housing.

Ian Burnley is an Emeritus Professor at UNSW Australia’s City Futures Research Centre. He is a human geographer and demographer whose research activities have focused on international migration to Australia. He was elected as a Fellow to the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2010.

Bruce Judd is the Director of the Australian School of Architecture and Design at UNSW Australia. With a background in architecture, his research interests include housing design and human behaviour; medium-density housing; public housing estate renewal; urban renewal; and ageing and the built environment.

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