文章來源：《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》May 20th 2023 期 Britain?欄目 Family dynamics

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Twenty-Three Years?ago, a man in his 30s greeted the millennium “in despair. I’m a single parent, I live with my mother…I need a Life Plan.”?Adrian Mole was?fictitious: his bestselling comic diaries were a?vessel?for Sue Townsend’s anger at the inequalities and?hypocrisies?of late 20th- and early 21st-century Britain.?But real Adrians are becoming more common.

23年前，一個30多歲的男人在 "絕望中 "迎接千禧年的到來。“我成長在一個單親家庭，我和我母親住在一起......我需要一個人生計劃”。阿德里安.莫爾是虛構(gòu)的人物：他的暢銷漫畫日記是作者蘇.湯森對20世紀(jì)末21世紀(jì)初英國不平等和虛偽現(xiàn)象表達憤怒的載體。但現(xiàn)實中像阿德里安的人變得越來越普遍。

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The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says the?census?of England and Wales in March 2021 found 4.9m adult children living with their parents, up from 4.2m in the 2011 survey.?Most people in their early 20s, and more than one in ten of those in their early 30s, have yet to fly the nest (see chart).?And that does not even count the Adrians: the?tally?includes only childless, single adults.?Multi-family households (containing couples or lone parents under a shared roof) made up 1.4% of all households in 2021, up from 1.2% in 2011.

國家統(tǒng)計局表示，2021年3月英格蘭和威爾士的人口普查發(fā)現(xiàn)，有490萬成年子女與父母同住，高于 2011 年調(diào)查時的420萬。大多數(shù)20歲出頭的人，以及超過十分之一的30歲出頭的人，還沒有離開家（見圖）。而且這還不算阿德里安一族：統(tǒng)計中只包括無子女的單身成年人。2021年，數(shù)代同堂家庭（包括共同居住的夫婦或單親）占所有家庭的1.4%，高于2011年的1.2%。

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Granted, in some other countries grown-up children are even more reluctant to move out: two-thirds of young Italian adults live at home.?But why are young Britons staying longer than they used to?

誠然，在其他一些國家，成年子女更不愿意搬出去：2/3的意大利年輕成年人住在家里。但是，為什么英國年輕人比以前呆在家的時間更長呢？

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There are many reasons why adults live with their parents: they are likelier to be unemployed, or to be students or carers, than those with places of their own.?You might suppose that the covid-19 pandemic had caused more youngsters to stay or return home.?You might suppose that the covid-19 pandemic had caused more youngsters to stay or return home.?Nor does ethnicity seem to explain the shift. The share of multi-generational Asian households, the highest among any ethnic group, fell.

成年人與父母同住有很多原因：與那些有自己住處的年輕人相比，他們更可能是失業(yè)者，或者是學(xué)生或家庭護理員。你可能會認(rèn)為，疫情導(dǎo)致更多的年輕人呆在家里或回到家里。也許，但英國國家統(tǒng)計局說，大約90%的成年人與父母同住至少一年，與2011年相同。種族因素似乎也不能解釋這種轉(zhuǎn)變。多代同堂的亞裔家庭的比例（在所有族裔中占比最高）下降了。

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The likeliest explanation is that many young adults cannot afford to buy or rent their own homes.?In the first 20 years of the century, according to The Economist’s house-price index, British property prices almost doubled.?According to Halifax, a lender, the average age of first-time buyers is now 32.?Not surprisingly London, which has the priciest housing, also had the highest proportion of households with grown-up children: 26.8%.?In the?borough?of Brent, in the north-west of the city, the share was almost one in three.

最可能的解釋是，許多年輕人買不起或租不起自己的房子。根據(jù)《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》的房價指數(shù)，在本世紀(jì)的前20年里，英國的房價幾乎翻了一番。根據(jù)貸款機構(gòu)Halifax的數(shù)據(jù)，現(xiàn)在首次購房者的平均年齡為32歲。毫不奇怪，倫敦是房價最高的城市，也是成年子女家庭比例最高的城市：26.8%。在倫敦西北部的布倫特區(qū)，這一比例幾乎為33.3%。

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The squeeze on housing costs and living space is tightest in poor households.?Not only are rents high, says Molly Broome of the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, but for many years the provision of social housing—for which many young people on low incomes would have been?eligible?in the past—has failed to keep pace with demand.?Local Housing Allowance (a rent subsidy), which was increased at the start of the pandemic in 2020, has been frozen since then.

住房成本上漲和居住空間縮小對于貧困家庭的影響最嚴(yán)重。英國智囊團"決議基金會"的莫莉.布魯姆說，不僅租金高，而且多年來，社會住房的供應(yīng)--過去許多低收入的年輕人有資格獲得--現(xiàn)在未能跟上需求。當(dāng)?shù)刈》拷蛸N（一種租金補貼）在2020年疫情開始時有所增加，但此后一直被凍結(jié)。

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Lone parents were likelier than couples to have adult children at home. In London, more than half did.?Homes with grown-up children are more likely to be classed as overcrowded—meaning, for example, that adults not in a couple, or more than two teenagers of the same sex, share a bedroom.?In London almost one in four families with adult children was overcrowded, against one in 15 in north-east England.

單親父母比雙親父母更有可能與成年子女同住，一半以上情況是如此。有成年子女的家庭更有可能“過度擁擠”--例如，這意味著未婚成年人，或兩個以上的同性青少年，共用一間臥室。在倫敦，幾乎1/4的成年子女家庭“過度擁擠”，而在英格蘭東北部，這一比例為1/15。

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Since the census was taken, double-digit inflation, and especially rising rents and mortgage rates, have added to young people’s incentive to stay in the parental home while they save.?They may—or may not—find comfort in what became of Adrian Mole. Townsend’s diarist did eventually find a home of his own: a?converted pigsty. His parents lived in another, next door.

自人口普查以來，兩位數(shù)的通貨膨脹，特別是不斷上漲的租金和房貸利率，這促使年輕人選擇留在父母家中居住，并節(jié)省開支。他們可能會--也可能不會--從阿德里安.莫爾的故事中找到安慰。湯森的日記主人公最終找到了屬于自己的家：一個由豬舍改建的房間。他的父母住在隔壁的另一間房里。