America Adapting to an Extended Family System

Recently, I passed by a nearby neighborhood and followed an “estate sale” sign. Even at just a glance, it was clearly a wealthy household but the owner was selling everything like beds, electronics, clothes and dishes. An elderly woman named Marilyn stood by the doorway with a calculator selling her household items, and she said to me, “My daughter lives in Washington, D.C., and we decided to sell this house and live together.” I asked her if living separately is not more comfortable and she replied that “these days, it is hard for us to upkeep this house.”

There is an old saying that even a king cannot save one from poverty. To an economic crisis that Barack Obama cannot solve, Americans are responding instinctively. According to public opinion agency Pew Research Center, Americans are moving away from the era of the nuclear family system and adapting to the extended family system. Multi-generation homes and multiple generations living under one roof have increased from 4.65 million in 2007 to 5.1 million in recent days. The Pew Research Center added that such a phenomenon has accelerated since the 2008 financial crisis.

Young college graduates unable to find jobs and moving in with their parents, as well as elderly couples selling their house and moving in with their children are becoming a new trend. It was reported that one out of four people between the ages of 18 and 24 live with their parents. The number is largely because of unemployment. The unemployment rate for Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 is a staggering 38 percent, which is the highest in 40 years. Also, the income of a multi-generation household is lower than a single-generation household. On the other hand, the poverty rate of a multi-generation household is 11.5 percent, which is lower than the poverty rate of a single-generation household rate, at 14.6 percent, due to the economic advantage of a multi-generation household.

The people are always the first to be affected in an economic downturn. This year, Halloween decorations are rare even in an affluent neighborhood like McLean, Va. It is even difficult to find pumpkins, which used to line up house after house when I was studied abroad here in the U.S. seven years ago. On Oct. 23, the Washington Post ran a special story on Occupy Wall Street, which reported that the ire of demonstrators is targeted at the blame-game politicians. The demonstrators are frustrated with politics that cannot solve the people’s hardship.

Yesterday, my friends and I discussed about what politics is. After rounds of deliberations, we concluded that politics is for the people. No one disputed that the highest priority of a politician should be what the people want. Are politics in Washington, D.C., and South Korea for the people?

A multi-generation household made up of elderly parents and young offspring or grandparents and grandchildren is the indicator of the sad state of American politics in 2011. I hear that in South Korea there is a scuffle over the Seoul mayoral election, but it seems that the list of candidates is full of average opportunistic crashers.