Living Arrangements, Doubling Up, and the Great Recession: Was This Time Different?
Marianne Bitler, Hilary Hoynes
American Economic Review · 2015 · Volume 105 · Issue 5
Abstract
The Great Recession marks the worst downturn since those of the early 1980s. A large literature considers how the public safety net responded to this shock. We instead consider the responsiveness of one dimension of the private safety net. Families can react to negative shocks by moving in with relatives or downsizing. We use across-state over-time variation to estimate the effects of cycles on living arrangements, paying particular attention to young adults. We find living arrangements are cyclical, but effects are small. Surprisingly given the press attention, we find no evidence that things are different in the Great Recession.
Keywords
Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital, Aggregate Labor Productivity, Business Fluctuations, Cycles, Measurement and Analysis of Poverty, Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs, Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs, Marriage, Marital Dissolution, Family Structure, Domestic Abuse, Fertility, Family Planning, Child Care, Children, Youth
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