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On April 6, 2010 I posted the results of the Pew Research Center’s analysis of the census data regarding Multiple Generation Households dated March 18, 2010 on my blog for the first time. Recent developments in this demographic group led me to re-visit that report and others.

According to Pew Research, Multiple Generation Households have rebounded to a new popularity with 49, million, 16% of all Americans, living in households with adults of other generations in 2008. Over the course of the 20^th century the percentage of Americans living in multi-generation households steadily declined from 24.7 % in 1940 to a low of 12% in 1980. Since then the trend reversed itself and increased to 16.1% in 2008. Since 1980 this population segment totaled 12,628,000 new individuals for 451,000 people per year on average.

AARP, however, issued their analysis of the same census data, Builder Magazine reported on April 22, 2011. AARP’s numbers are lower than Pew’s since they did not include households where an adult parent lived with an adult child 25 years old or older. This more restrictive definition of what constitutes a multiple generation home led to the following conclusions: In 2000 there were 5 million multi-generation households in America for 4.8% of total households in the country. By 2008 that number grew to 6.2 million households or 5.3% of the nation’s total. In 2010, 7.1 million households in the country or 6.1 % of total households were multi-generation.

Since there are approximately 3 people in each household, in 2000 there were 15 million people in multi-generation households and 21 million people in 2010, a growth of 6 million people in 10 years or an average of 600,000 people each year. Whether you use Pew Research’s numbers or the ones from AARP the conclusion for the market is the same, one half of one million people move into multi-generation households each year. That’s a housing market worth paying attention to.