Rising Rents Push Non‑College Men Back Home, Shrinking Labor Force and Marriage Rates

How rising rents are reshaping male labor participation

Across the United States, rising rents have forced a surge of non‑college‑educated men to return to their parents’ homes, a shift that coincides with a historic dip in male labor force participation and a slowdown in marriage rates. A new working paper by Gabrielle Penrose, using six decades of Census data, links a 10% local rent increase to a 1.1‑percentage‑point rise in the likelihood that a non‑college man moves back in.

“There are very real economic forces limiting options for non‑college men,” Penrose told Reuters.

Since 1960, real rents have climbed ↓ 150% while wages for high‑school‑educated workers have stagnated. The study finds that men who live with parents are ↓ 20% less likely to be employed than peers who live independently.

Housing supply constraints amplify the problem

Geographic barriers such as coastlines and mountains restrict new construction, pushing prices up independent of local earnings. In those high‑cost zones, non‑college men are almost twice as likely as women to reside with parents.

Baby‑boomer homeowners, flush with equity, are increasingly buying multigenerational houses – a trend highlighted in the pandemic era – enabling adult children to stay rent‑free but also reducing their incentive to seek work.

Scott Winship of the American Enterprise Institute warns that the contraction of the male labor pool is more severe now than in the 1960s, when a larger share of the population lacked a bachelor’s degree.

The fallout extends to family formation: with fewer men marrying, the financial calculus of independent living shifts, reinforcing the cycle of home‑bound unemployment.

Reported by: Arthur Sterling

Macroeconomics Editor