WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A WHOLE GENERATION NEVER GROWS UP?

As 30-somethings increasingly bypass the traditional milestones of adulthood, economists are warning that what seemed like a lag may in fact be a permanent state of arrested development.

- RACHEL WOLFE

AMERICANS IN THEIR 30s have never looked less like grown-ups.

Amid steep declines in homeownership, marriage and birth rates, economists have long been warning that young people are struggling to meet the milestones of adulthood. Although some 30-somethings are consciously choosing a less traditional path, many say these goals are simply out of reach.

"It feels like the instructions for how to live a good life don't apply anymore," says 38-year-old Cody Harding, who is single and lives with three roommates in Brooklyn. "And nobody has updated them." Now, as a mix of social and economic factors holds back an entire generation, what researchers once called a lag is starting to look more like a permanent state of arrested development.

"We're moving from later to never," says Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. He notes that the longer people take to launch into a more conventional adulthood, the less likely they are to do it at all.

A third of today's young adults will never marry, projects conservative think tank the Institute for Family Studies, compared to less than a fifth of those born in previous decades. The share of childless adults under 50 who say they are unlikely to ever have kids, meanwhile, rose 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023, from 37% to 47%, according to Pew Research Center.

"You can kick the can down the road, but only so far," says Reeves.

The conventional explanation for what's freezing young adults in place is that they can't afford to grow up, given rising inflation and ballooning housing costs. Yet this doesn't quite explain what's going on.

It's true that 30-somethings have had a run of tough economic luck. Many of them entered the job market during the Great Recession, rode out the pandemic by moving back in with their parents, and are now dealing with the worst housing market in 40 years. But the numbers paint a more complicated picture.