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       Interpreting the increase in financial assistance from parents to adult children is difficult. There are, of course, many cultural divinations about the character of millennials and how it may contribute to receiving help: Individuals from the generation, born 1982-2000, have no shortage of youthful selfishness, were coddled through their education, enter the workforce entitled and over-confident, and of course, are over sensitive about most things. These popular characterizations, though often amusing, do not explain broad trends in economic assistance, and may detract from the economic realities and underlying fragility assistance can reveal.

       Social science researchers have identified quantifiable, causal reasons for parental assistance. First, parents invest in their children's education. One reason for the increase in parental financial assistance overall could be that educational investment is becoming both more common and more expensive. In 2015, 36 percent of individuals 25-34 had a college degree or higher, compared to 23 percent in 1985 and 11 percent in 1960. The cost of higher education has jumped, however, and the College Board estimates that tuition and fees at a four-year public university have increased 271 percent since 1976, or from the equivalent of 5 percent of median household income to 18 percent of median household income.

       Second, parents provide support if their children are unemployed or experience some kind of economic shock. The millennial cohort, which graduated high school between 2000-2017, had a notoriously difficult labor market to contend with. There were two recessions, the first in 2001 after the bursting of the dotcom bubble and the second in 2007 after the bursting of the housing bubble. Over that time, the unemployment rate for young workers reached nearly 20 percent, and economists have found that merely entering the labor market during a downturn has long-term negative effects on earnings. Demographers have found that moving in with parents often occurs in direct response to unemployment.

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