Together alone: Opportunities and limitations of mature coresidency during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The subject of this paper are cultural representations of disease, care and dependence in households of the so-called “mature coresidency”. This concept refers to families in which parents live with their adult children and focuses on the phenomenon of “extended youth” - longer transition to adulthood, economic and residential dependence of young people in the parental home. The life of young people with their parents, in research and narratives, is often perceived as a forced, conditioned by the political and economic situation in the country. Having in mind the circumstances under which the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic developed and changed, from months of fear and panic to formal closure in the form of quarantine, I discuss family dynamics, division of labor, and possible changes in the roles of family members responsible for household maintenance, grocery shopping etc. Furthermore, I analyze whether the attitude towards living together has changed in the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, by examining how interlocutors interpret their own roles, obligations within the household and care for its members. The aim of this paper is to review the opportunities and limitations of family cohabitation while examining whether young people and their parents perceive coresidency during the pandemic as a positive and strategic, or a negative and dangerous circumstance. Moreover, it will be discussed if young people, perceived as a risk in public sphere, are also perceived as a risk within their own households. The paper relies on the results of a qualitative research conducted in Belgrade since April 2020 among young adults their parents.

Keywords

• extended youth
• mature coresidency
• belgrade
• youth
• covid-19