According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, nearly 60 percent of American families provide financial assistance to their adult children. Parents have always supported their children up to a certain age, financing either a wedding or the purchase of their first home. Thus, the “financial umbilical cord” stretches much later, up to 35-36 years.

In addition, more young adults are also living with their parents, according to the report. Among Americans younger than 25, 57 percent live with their parents, up from 53 percent in 1993.

Parental support continues into later life as young people take longer to reach financial milestones that past generations achieved more easily, economists and researchers say.

There is also a greater wealth gap between older and younger Americans, giving some parents more means and arguments to help their children.

Kami Loukipoudis, a 39-year-old designer, and husband Adam Stojanic, a 39-year-old high school teacher, knew they would need their parents’ help to buy a home in New York’s expensive housing market.

“We could have paid off the mortgage, but the level of down payment required was staggering,” Stojanik told the WSJ. “The idea was to save, but as long as we’re renting, it would take us 300 years to collect the down payment”

Loukipoudis’ mother gave them money for the down payment on a two-bedroom apartment in the New York borough of Queens.

According to Marla Ripoll, an economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh, adult children are not necessarily earning more than their parents, but they are staying on their parents’ paychecks longer than previous generations. adult children over 20 years old.

Among grown children who said they received financial help from their parents in the past year, most said they used it for everyday household expenses, such as phone bills and streaming subscriptions like Netflix, according to a Pew survey.

Other results from Pews Research:

• Parents are very actively involved in the lives of their young children. Most text (73%) or talk on the phone (54%) with their adult child at least a few times a week.

• Most adults agree with their parents’ level of involvement in their lives: 69% say their parents are as involved in their daily lives as they would like. About one in five (22%) say their parents are not involved enough, while only 9% say their parents are. Most young people say they turn to their parents for advice about work, finances and even their physical health.

• In most cases, mothers are especially attached to their adult children. Mothers are also more likely than fathers to admit that their children need advice or money. Mothers and daughters are especially close-knit, with many relying on each other for emotional support.

• One in four parents (25%) say they track their child’s location using GPS apps. In addition, fathers observe daughters more often than sons (31% vs. 21%).

• Adults today are much more likely to graduate from college than their counterparts 30 years ago. They also have outstanding student loans

• Today’s young adults are more likely to be employed full-time than young adults in 1993. They marry much later than their parents’ generation. The gap in the married rate is particularly wide among 25- to 29-year-olds: 29% were married in 2023, compared to 50% in 1993.

• Today’s youth are also delaying having children. For example, in 2023, 27 percent of adults aged 30 to 34 had a child in their household, up from 60 percent in 1993.

• Despite delaying marriage and parenthood, a Pew survey shows that a majority of young adults who have never been married (69%) say they want to get married someday.

• A smaller share (51%) declare that they would like to have children someday (among those who are currently childless). Young men are more likely than young women to say they want to have children (57% vs. 45%).