The failure of “traditional adult goals” for today’s young people: New cohabitations and new coexistences

Abstract

By the term Millennials we indicate the ones who reach the status of young adult in the first part of the 21st century. In Italy, multiple indicators about employment or the availability of assets indicate a crisis for this generation. With regard to Millennials economists deal with the issue of “generational divide”, meaning that, also because of the wealth accumulated to their detriment and in an unproductive way by the generations of the current sixty and seventy years old people, they are condemned to delay indefinitely the pursuit of goals considered proper of adult age, such as to get married and have a home of their own. At the same time, the economic culture within which this forecast is made is in crisis. We explored the issue by assuming current youth cohabitations as a symptomatic event. We think they are indicative of ongoing changes: young people are mixed with the less young ones, students with workers, males with females, what is temporary can become permanent. We wondered how the current housemates experience cohabitation, and how much they are satisfied with it. In this regard, we interviewed a group of 46 people in Rome, both males and females, above and below the age of thirty, living together without family ties. The data results show that the so-called “adult goals” are not necessarily coveted, that new perspectives are outlined, and that respondents are satisfied with the experience of cohabitation.