As adult children move in with parents in great numbers, adjustments are necessary

Inside a red rambler in Orem, over a dog gate, down the hall and to the left is a room with three laptops balanced on an office desk that would have been crowded with two. A makeshift sign bearing the company's name, Guest eXperience Marketing, marks this small room as the base of operations for Reese Briggs' budding business.

Dressed sharply in a white shirt, green-striped-and-gray dress pants and wearing thin-rimmed glasses, Briggs looks like your typical budding business student. With two jobs, a full-time class load at school, a girlfriend and a recently launched business consulting company, this 22-year-old exceeds most people's expectations of what it takes to be a responsible adult. However, one aspect of his life carries with it some negative connotations.

He can't help but smile as he describes his company — how he would like for it to be more professional, how his business partner feels free to walk in and out of the home in which his company is based, and how, depending on when his partner shows up, he just might bump into Briggs' parents who are getting ready for work.

That's because Briggs lives at home with his parents.

While Briggs admits he has had to make some lifestyle adjustments, he acknowledges living at home with his parents has allowed him opportunities he would not have had otherwise.

"The money that I would have been spending on rent is going toward my business so that's been a big help," Briggs said.

Briggs represents a growing demographic of adults 18 to 34 who, often for economic reasons, have moved back in with mom and dad. Recent census data shows an increase in adults in this age bracket who are living with their parents.

While many point to the recession as the cause of this mass migration home, Rose Kreider, a family demographer with the fertility and family statistics branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, says the data show little correlation between the two. Other factors may be increased housing costs, the later age of marrying or entering into a long-term committed relationship and the rising costs of education, Kreider says.

The number of adult children living at home has been on the rise since 2000, according to the census data. Men 25 to 34 who are living at home rose from 14 percent in 2005 to 19 percent in 2011, while women of the same age went from 8 percent in 2005 to 10 percent in 2011.