The Statistics Canada study used 2001 data to examine patterns
in the frequency with which young people have returned home over the last few
decades and their reasons for doing so.
It found that the tendency to return home at least once has
increased in each of five successive generations, starting with the first wave
of baby boomers born between 1947 and 1951.
Among these early-wave boomers, the probability of returning
home within five years of first leaving was less than 12 per cent for men and
10 per cent for women.
In contrast, the probability for the later wave of Gen Xers,
born between 1972 and 1976, was just about three times higher -- 32 per cent
for men and 28 per cent for women.
Factors that help explain this growing trend include the increasing
acceptance of common-law relationships, which are more likely to fail than marriages;
the pursuit of higher education, which tends to leave young graduates with heavy
student debts; the reduced stigma attached to living with parents and a desire
for a standard of living impossible to afford on their own.