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More Americans live with grandma
During the 1990s, 3-generation households were the fastest-growing kind in the U.S., the census finds.
Joe Newman
Sentinel Staff Writer

October 3, 2005

The American household might be coming full circle.

Just as they did in earlier eras, more and more extended families these days are finding themselves living under the same roof.

From 1990 to 2000, the number of households with three generations or more grew faster than any other kind.

Though still a small percentage of overall households, the number of three-generation families across the country grew 38 percent in the 1990s to 4.2 million homes in 2000, according to a recent U.S. census report.

Many of them are immigrants, such as Isabel Mendoza, 24, and her family.

Mendoza was born in Texas but spent her childhood in Venezuela. Now she shares an apartment in Hunter's Creek with her twin sister, mother and grandparents.

She says it's normal in Venezuela for three generations of one family to live together.

"When you come to this country, that doesn't mean you leave your values behind," Mendoza said.

Those types of values were once the norm.

"We're really talking about getting back to the way this country used to be," said Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United, a group that promotes intergenerational social policies.

Neither the U.S. census nor demographic experts can point to the exact reasons for the upswing in three-generation households; Butts and others say it boils down to three factors: financial savings, increased immigration and a shift by some families away from nursing homes.

The multigenerational households come in all shapes and sizes -- from the immigrant families that tend to stay together to the single mothers who live with their parents to the family that takes in an aging mother or father.

Frank Hobbs, a U.S. census demographer, who looked at the shifting demographics during the 1990s, said the increase in multigenerational households was one of the things that stood out.

"They've grown faster than overall household growth," Hobbs said.

Despite their rapid growth, only about 4 percent of American households have three or more generations, with the large majority of them being families in which the head of the household lives with a child and grandchild.

The numbers drop way off after three generations -- there were 97,000 households with four generations and only 300 with five generations in the 2000 census.

Economics often plays a large role in the cohabitation of extended families. Rising housing costs can motivate single parents to move in with family members, said Robert Lerman, a researcher at the Washington-based Urban Institute.

Some of his research has found that as many as one-third of single parents live with adult relatives or friends, Lerman said.

"I know that for a long time, our picture of single parents has been distorted by simply the image of a mother with children by themselves," Lerman said. "Typically, they were with their parents."

Immigration has probably played a role in the increase in three-generation households. During the 1990s, nearly 10 million immigrants moved to the U.S. -- about 1.4 million more than during the previous decade.

Demographers say new immigrants tend to join relatives who already are established in this country.

Back when Mendoza's grandfather Antonio Naim, 91, was a successful businessman in Venezuela, he dreamed of the day his children would grow up and everyone would live together.

He even planned for that day by building a house with nine bedrooms and five bathrooms in their hometown of Barquisimeto.

So there was really no question that when his family members -- three generations of them -- moved this year from Kissimmee to Hunter's Creek, they would be doing so together.

His twin granddaughters, Isabel and Olga Mendoza, moved to Central Florida in 1995 while teenagers.

They wouldn't have it any other way, said the sisters, both University of Central Florida students.

Their mother, Waded Naim, moved from Venezuela and joined them full time in 2001. Waded's parents have been splitting their time between Florida and Venezuela for more than a decade.

Isabel and her sister say they realize they'll eventually move out and be on their own.

"OK, we say, 'Who's going to take mom?' " Isabel said. "Even if we move away, our dream is to buy houses next to each other and be neighbors."