The number and percentage of shared households increased over the course of the recent national recession, according to a report released last month by the Census Bureau. A “shared household” is a household which includes at least one additional adult who is not a student, spouse, or partner of the primary household head.
By 2010, shared households comprised 18.7 percent of all households in the U.S. Nearly half of all shared households are comprised of adults who live with their parents.
Poverty rates were lower among shared households, suggesting that household sharing “may have been a strategy to mitigate challenging economic circumstances,” the report explains.