According to a report just released by the Pew Research Center, there are now 64 million American living in multigenerational homes. Pew’s definition of a multigenerational home is one that has adults of different generations over 25 years old living under the same roof. The age was set to 25 to exclude college students living at home.

That represents 20% of all Americans, meaning that one out of five adults lives in a home with an adult of another generation. There has been a steady growth in multigenerational homes since 1980 when there were 27.5 million people living in multigenerational homes, representing only 12% of the population.

There has been  a major uptick in multigenerational homes since 2000 when 15% of adults lived in multigenerational homes, and since 2009, when it was 17%. The recent spike of adults of different generations living together is probably related to the spike in housing prices that makes it hard for people to afford their first home.

Interestingly, the growth of adults in multigenerational homes is coming from adults under 30 years old. There has been a steady drop in the elderly living in multigenerational homes – 63% of those over 85 did so in 1940, and only 25% today. But for adults between 25 and 29, the percentage has grown from 13% in 1980 to 33% today.

The most common multigenerational homes consists of parents living with adult children. Women are slightly more likely to live in multigenerational homes than men. However, in the 25-29 year old age group there are far more young men still living at home.

Why did I write this blog, other than I found it to be an interesting topic? I think most ISPs don’t do a very good job of knowing their customers. It seems likely to me that a multigenerational home is a good candidate for faster broadband since there is a much higher chance that there are multiple adults using broadband at the same time.

I might be wrong about that, but it leads me to talk about knowing your customers. This made me wonder how many ISPs know basic facts like the number of adults in a household or the number of kids living at home? I asked a few small ISPs this question and was not surprised to find out that they did not know the basic demographics of their customers. They had no idea if a home had only a single adult living alone or seven residents.

I know that ISPs are sensitive about violating customer privacy. But it’s a reasonable question to ask customers how many people live in a home – it’s a great thing to know for an ISP that wants to make sure that the residents have the best WiFi setup. It’s also useful to know to make sure customers have the right broadband product. I’m not aware of any privacy rules that would stop an ISP from asking basic questions like the number of residents – particularly if the question is phrased in a way that knowing the answer can help them provide the best service. Customers are always free not to answer the question, although I imagine most would.