Where in the U.S. do people most commonly have roommates? And at what age? This article from Dan Kopf of Priceonomics shares some of the results from the 2014 American Community Survey.
The roommate as a normal part of American life is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Fifty years ago a person would typically go straight from living with his or her family to living with a spouse – perhaps with some college in between. Today, it is not unusual to spend the better part of your twenties (or even your thirties) living with people that are neither a family member nor a partner. The living situations of the characters on “Big Bang Theory” and “Friends” would have seemed peculiar to mid-20th century audiences.
Combine increased urbanization, lower marriage rates, later marriage, and increasingly expensive housing costs, and you get a lot of young people willing to live with friends and strangers.
Overall, 7.7% of Americans live with a roommate, but as the chart below shows, this likelihood spikes in the early twenties, when many Americans are finished with schooling but not yet coupled up.
After peaking in the early twenties, the likelihood of having a roommate very quickly declines through the mid thirties, as more people find romantic partners or decide to live alone. From the mid thirties, the proportion of people who have roommates declines more gradually.
In general, the twenties are the pinnacle of roommate living. Across cities, though, there is a wide variation in the percentage of people who live with a roommate at various ages. We analyzed the fifty largest cities in the United States for which the 2014 American Community Survey lists data to find where people between the ages of 18 and 39 are most likely to have a roommate (Some large cities, like Houston and San Diego, are omitted).
San Francisco is the roommate capital of the United States. The nation’s highest rents lead young people here to live together at a rate that is more than double the average of the top 50 cities (12%), and 20% higher than second place Arlington, Virginia.
Most of the top cities on the list are relatively expensive cities that are appealing to collegians and recent graduates for a variety of ambitions: San Francisco for tech, Washington DC and Arlington for politics, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh for education, and Portland for early “retirement.”
We were curious to see where people continue to live with roommates into their thirties more prevalently – the cities where people either can’t afford to grow up or choose not to. Which city is the home of those beset by the Peter Pan syndrome?
Once again, San Francisco comes out on top – and this time, by an even larger margin. One out of every five San Franciscans in their 30s lives with a roommate. This is more than 40% higher than any other city, and almost triple the national average.
Using the American Community Survey data, we found that across the entire country, the proportion of people with roommates has increased from 6.8% in 2000 to 7.7% in 2014, a 13% increase. In San Francisco, the roommate rate went from 23.3% to 28.1% in this same period, an increase of 20.6%.
San Francisco has long been the home of the roommate, and it is becoming even more so.
