Many mouths under one roof: Multigenerational families in Europe sharing resources within households

We often assume that a typical household in Europe is made up of a single family unit – an adult, possibly with a partner, and any dependent children. But households that include other adults, often from another generation, are common. Coresidence creates economies of scale, especially in housing costs, but the overall effect on the living standards of different members of the household depends on how resources are shared. In this chapter, we review what is already known about the sharing of resources in multigenerational households and document the scale and composition of these households across European countries using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. We reflect on the implications of the differences observed for the reliability of standard poverty and deprivation statistics that assume full sharing, and demonstrate the effect of a range of plausible alternatives. The final part of the chapter discusses directions for future research.