When Tatiana Anguay arrived in Maui after college on the mainland, she had no idea that years later she would be living in the same house with four generations of her family.
Anguay, 31, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sofia, have their own studio in the largest family home in Kahului that she shares with her parents, grandparents and her 20-year-old sister.
“Obviously, I didn’t expect to live there that long, but with how high the rents are and the costs of the house, it was so much easier,” she said.
Since her grandparents, now in their 80s, bought the modest two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in the mid-’70s, the home has been expanded over the years to create a four-bedroom downstairs living space. , three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and Anguay’s study.
It’s a familiar situation for the more than 44,500 households in Hawaii with three or more generations living under one roof, according to the most recent data on household characteristics from the 2020 Census.
“A lot of communication,” said Anguay, a construction consultant for a solar energy company, when asked how they handle their multigenerational living arrangement. “Everyone should have a say in everything that happens in the home because everyone has financial parts. The good thing with their age and the time they have lived here is that the payment part is done; it’s just maintenance and being able to pay the bills and electricity.”
Another benefit, she added, is that her daughter is growing up surrounded by her kupuna.
“It makes babysitting so much easier and it’s cheaper too. Being able to trust the people who live with you to accommodate you is an incredible blessing.”
With high housing costs and a strong sense of ohana, Hawaii once again leads the nation in multigenerational households, with 9% of the state’s 490,267 households comprised of three or more generations, according to census data released May 25. .
That’s an increase from 8.8% in 2010 and 8.2% in 2000. Nationally, multigenerational households make up 7.2% of all US households; California was second behind Hawaii at 7.3%.
Barbara DeBaryshe, acting director and specialist at the University of Hawaii Family Center, said that living with extended family is often an economic necessity given the high cost of housing in the state, “but it’s also a hallmark strength of our communities”.
“Living together can support intergenerational bonds, facilitate care for very young or elderly relatives, and enrich the lives of family members through their shared daily experiences,” she said.
Hawaii’s census data also reflects the traditional family structures of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Chinese and other Asian families, according to state chief economist Eugene Tian of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Sixteen percent of Hawaiian households that identified only as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander on the 2020 census form had three or more generations living together, the highest ratio among racial groups. Of Asian-only households, 11.1% were multigenerational, as were 10.7% of “two or more races” households.
Although not included in the latest 2020 census release, separate data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey showed that, when pooled together, Native Hawaiians and Partial Hawaiians had the largest increase in multigenerational households, of 26% in 2010 to 33% in 2020, according to Sarah Yuan, a specialist at the UH Center for the Family.
The ACS data also showed that “middle income” groups earning between $93,000 and $119,000 for a family of four had the highest percentage of multigenerational households in 2020 at 35%, Yuan said, and the largest percentage increase in multigenerational life, of 8 percentage points. .
coupled homes
Evidence of Hawaii’s growing population of older residents can be found in 2020 data indicating that nearly 40% of all households in the state included someone age 65 or older, an increase of more than 9 percentage points. since 2010, while at the same time, 31.5% of households included children under the age of 18, a drop of almost 3 percentage points.
Married-couple households, which totaled 240,160, made up nearly half of all local households, a small decrease from 2010. Although cohabitation has become more common, especially among young adults, unmarried-couple households were much less frequent, at 34,254, and comprised just 7% of all Hawaiian households in 2020.
In both married and single cases, joint households without children under 18 years of age outnumbered those with children. Data for 2020 indicated that 35.4% of married couples in Hawaii lived with minor children, more than 4 percentage points less than in 2010.
For cohabiting couples, 33% lived with keiki under the age of 18.
DeBaryshe said the decline in married couples with minor children is due in part to Hawaii’s aging population and lower birth rate, “with more adults choosing not to be parents.” And with more single parents living together, “the proportion of households with married parents will drop even if children live with both parents.”
He added that whether or not the parents are married is of minor importance to their children.
“It’s not the paper, the marriage license, that makes the difference,” according to DeBaryshe. “It’s the stability and quality of the relationship between the adults in the lives of the children.”
Overall, married couples with children comprised 17.3% of total households in Hawaii, a decline of nearly 3 percentage points over the decade.
same sex couples
In the first census since the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, the count showed that same-sex households made up 2.2% of Hawaii’s 274,414 “partnered households.” and 1.2% of all households.
Nationwide, same-sex couples made up 1.7% of united households and 0.9% of total households.
A breakdown of conjoined households in Hawaii revealed that an overwhelming majority were opposite-sex married couples (86.1%), followed by opposite-sex unmarried couples (11.6%), same-sex married couples (1.3 %) and same-sex unmarried couples. (0.8%), according to census data.
Both married and single same-sex couples were split fairly evenly between male-male and female-female pairings.
Hawaii, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2013, was among the four states with the highest concentrations of same-sex married couples (nearly 0.8% of total households) and among the 14 states with the highest percentage highest of unmarried same-sex couples (almost 0.5%).
“It has been only a little over 10 years since same-sex civil unions, and shortly thereafter, same-sex marriages became legal in our state. Hawaii can be seen as a relatively welcoming place for same-sex couples and LGBTQ people in general,” DeBaryshe said. “Pacific cultural traditions respect mahu, and Hawaii has avoided the controversy over issues like health care and representation of diversity that is occurring in some mainland states.”
The District of Columbia had the highest proportion of same-sex married couple households (1.4% of all households), and North Dakota and South Dakota had the lowest (0.2%). The District of Columbia also had the highest percentage of single same-sex households (1.2%), while Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming had the lowest percentage (0.2%). ).
Other recently released data from the 2020 census provided additional details for Hawaii households:
>> There were 7,752 households headed by a single man with children under 18 years of age, or 1.6% of all households. The 16,628 single female householders with minor keiki comprised 3.4%.
>> A total of 48,841 grandchildren under the age of 18 lived at home with their grandparents, or 3.4% of the state’s population.
>> Nearly a quarter of Hawaii households, or 24%, consisted of one person living alone, compared to 27.6% for the US as a whole.
>> The percentage of Hawaii households 65 and older in which the person lived alone increased by nearly 3 percentage points, to 10.8% in 2020 from 8.1% in 2010.
