Conference Agenda

In recent decades, young adulthood has been conceptualized as a distinct developmental period characterized by identity exploration, individuation, and increasing personal, occupational, and familial independence. Alongside this, a growing social trend has emerged in many developed societies: a rising number of young adults who continue to reside in their parental home into their thirties. This phenomenon raises questions regarding identity formation, particularly for men, for whom autonomy is often positioned as a core component of masculine identity.

This qualitative study examines how young adult men experience and make meaning of prolonged co-residence with parents, focusing on internal dialogues through which autonomy, masculinity, and adulthood are negotiated. The study draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 19 Israeli Jewish men aged 27–34, single and never having lived independently. Interviews were analyzed using thematic content analysis.

Four central themes were identified, each reflecting dominant self-positions. “The Golden Cage” describes the tension between voices of comfort and security and counter-voices of stagnation and reduced agency. “The Family’s Child” highlights the coexistence of aspirations for privacy and autonomy at home with enduring bonds of care, closeness, and obligation that complicate separation. “Red Lights” captures the social and romantic constraints associated with living at home, exposing conflicts between self-legitimization and internalized social criticism. Finally, “Something’s Wrong with You” reveals painful identity struggles marked by a gap between expected and lived life trajectories and ongoing friction between childlike and adult self-positions, contributing to diminished self-esteem and self-efficacy.

The findings contribute to Dialogical Self Theory by illustrating how prolonged co-residence functions as a dynamic space of internal negotiation, in which multiple self-positions are shaped by social expectations and masculine norms. Practically, the study underscores the importance of interventions that normalize this experience, reduce internalized stigma, and support identity development and autonomy within contemporary socio-economic contexts.