And as grown-up children are increasingly driven back into the family home by rising housing costs and job insecurity, there are damaging consequences for parents. Using a quality of life measure based on 12 key indicators, the study looked at participants’ sense of control, autonomy, pleasure and self-realisation. The scale ranged from 12 to 48 with higher scores equating to a better quality of life. “Our work shows that in contexts where family orientations and welfare institutions foster individuals’ independence, returns home by adult children have negative implications for parents’ wellbeing. “The findings show that returning home was correlated with a decline in parents’ quality of life when there were no other children in the parental home.

Source: The Guardian March 07, 2018 13:23 UTC