New Data Visualization Shows More Young Adults Worked From Home and Lived Alone During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Young adulthood (ages 18-34) is characterized by many life changes that may include starting employment, going to college and new living situations. But in recent years, this life stage has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought about large-scale societal transformations.

A new U.S. Census Bureau data visualization explores these changes across a myriad of social characteristics of young adults from 2019 to 2021 including working from home; college enrollment; living arrangements; and computer and internet use.

Between 2019 and 2021, the share of young adults ages 18 to 34 who:

• worked from home increased by 12.0 percentage points.
• had a broadband internet subscription increased by 2.4 percentage points.
• were enrolled in college or graduate school decreased by 0.7 percentage points.
• lived alone increased by 1.1 percentage points.

Other highlights of changes in the social characteristics of young adults from 2019 to 2021:

• The percentage of young adults working from home in Massachusetts increased 19.5 points from 4.8% to 24.3%.
• The percentage of young adults who owned a laptop or desktop computer in Mississippi increased 5.2 points from 72.1% to 77.3%.
• The number of young adults enrolled in public undergraduate educational institutions decreased 12.9%, from roughly 12.6 million in 2015 to 10.9 million in 2021.

All data come from the American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates.

The landing page of the visualization displays general statistics for each of the pages in the visualization: working from home; computer and internet use; college enrollment; and living arrangements.

All four pages have a dynamic graph that lets you explore each topic by a variety of characteristics as well as the percentage point change from 2019 to 2021.

Drop-down menus allow you to change the characteristics and age groups. Other highlights include maps of the percentage of young adults working from home and computer ownership by state; dynamic graphs showing recent trends in public and private college enrollment; and rich data on living arrangements.

Lydia R. Anderson, George M. Hayward, Kevin McElrath and Zachary Scherer are statisticians in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division

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