Households Down, Overcrowding Up
Creators Syndicate
By Jim Woodard
...Titled "What Happens to Household Formation in a Recession," the study was sponsored by the Research Institute for Housing America. It analyzed the impact of economic and housing conditions on household formation and how the recent recession has affected Americans' propensity to form new households, mobility trends, and changes in the rate of overcrowding.
"With such a significant drop in households nationwide, it is clear the most recent recession impacted individuals' decisions to move out on their own and caused many Americans to join already formed households," said Gary Painter, associate professor in the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California.
"Due to data limitations, my analysis had to focus on household formation as of 2008. Clearly, given the depth of the downturn in 2009, and the ongoing weakness in the job market through the beginning of this year, this study gives no reason to expect that household formation has picked up at all...