Whether You Call it Golden Girls or Hippie Communes, Shared Living is Here to Stay

Here’s yet another article documenting the rise of the communal living movement in the Boomer generation, especially among women. Author Martha Nelson, a former investigative reporter, columnist and editor at two New York newspapers, shares some interesting statistics on the numbers of women living together and the growth of this trend. She says that a variety of United States home share programs are reporting that their numbers have been rising especially since the economy tanked about six years ago. In 2010, 480,000 Baby Boom women lived with a least one unrelated female, according to AARP. Now the number is considerably higher.

We were interested to learn that the movement started in Denmark, and is very big now throughout Europe. Here in the U.S., it’s growing most rapidly on the East Coast and West Coast, with new groups and centers springing up all over the country.