Holding Pattern: Economics Keeps Us Young, Whether We Like It or Not 

There are many grown men on skateboards in San Francisco, going to or from apartments shared with other men who may also own skateboards. One way to read this is that the dominant cultural forces in the city tend toward the juvenile. Another way to read it is that they live this way longer because they have to. It's become harder in San Francisco to buy a house, and student loan payments are a reality long after graduation. So how can someone become an adult when it's becoming more and more expensive to do so? People here may not be able to afford to grow up. They may all be skateboarding in a holding pattern.

There is evidence that the phase of life known as adolescence is becoming, for some middle-class Americans, longer. Richard Lerner studies youth development at Tufts University, and he refers to the phenomenon as the "third decade of adolescence."

"The markers of adulthood have been extended so marriage, child-bearing, leaving the parental home, some of those markers for some people have been extended," Lerner says.

But people are living longer now than they used to. Is an extended youthful phase of life just the result of living longer?

Lerner rejects the idea. There is no evidence to suggest that there is anything biological about this cultural shift, he says. The extended period of adolescence, which has been observed over at least the past couple of decades, is purely "a sociological and historical phenomenon" that has more to do with class and culture than changes in lifespan.

The shift is due to a complex interaction of economic and educational factors, he says. Young middle-class people set their sights on careers that require an increasing amount of specialization, which means more degrees and longer periods of time spent in school. And, sometimes because of these educational expenses, things like marriage and home-owning, and certainly the financial burden that comes with procreation, are put on the back burner.

And perhaps it makes sense that these aging adolescents would find a home in San Francisco: The populace is well-educated while the homes are too expensive for many to ever own.

Lerner says that while many people in the U.S. and elsewhere do still get married young and have kids, among certain middle-class Americans, forces conspire to keep them apartment-bound. While this may be considered troubling in the U.S., elsewhere it's not seen as a problem. In Italy, for example, it's normal for a person to live with her family until her 30s.

So okay: fine, big deal. We're taking longer to get married and buy houses. Is that really so bad? The Italians are style trendsetters, right?

What we might want to be concerned about, Lerner says, is the effect that extended adolescence has on older generations.

"If parents are still having to support their kids when the kids are in their 20s, when can the parents retire? What do they do? Will they have to work longer?" he asks. "There's a whole cascade of family relationships and economic and sociological phenomena because of the elongations of marriage and child-bearing and setting up your own household."

By 2032, says Ken Smith, a researcher at Stanford's Longevity Institute, people 65 and over will outnumber people under 15 in the U.S. This statistic is unprecedented, and it is not without its implications.

Walter Greenleaf of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab says that "the big issue that we need to address is the fact that the demographics of an aging population tell us that we will soon have a crisis regarding elder care, without the previous numbers of supportive family members to help care for those with physical and cognitive problems."

Essentially, the younger generations may not be financially or domestically prepared to deal with the impending huge population of older people. San Francisco, being a town of transients, might depopulate as people move back home to care for their moms and dads.

Or, more likely, the tech industry is working even now on a DadTracker app, so entire communities of gamers can take care of each others' aging fathers in real time and virtually, from their apartments.