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A roommate is a person with whom one shares a living facility such as a
room In a building or large vehicle, like a ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure that connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors, that ...
or dormitory ''except'' when being family or romantically involved. Similar terms include dormmate, suitemate, housemate, or flatmate ("flat": the usual term in
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
for an apartment). Flatmate is the term most commonly used in New Zealand, when referring to the rental of an unshared room within any type of dwelling. Another similar term is sharemate (shared living spaces are often called ''sharehouses'' in Australia and other Commonwealth countries). A sharehome is a model of
household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...
in which a group of usually unrelated people reside together. The term generally applies to people living together in
rental Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for a ...
properties rather than in properties in which any resident is an
owner occupier Owner-occupancy or home-ownership is a form of housing tenure in which a person, called the owner-occupier, owner-occupant, or home owner, owns the home in which they live. The home can be a house, such as a single-family house, an apartment, con ...
. In the UK, the term "roommate" means a person living in the same ''bedroom'', whereas in the United States and Canada, "roommate" and "housemate" are used interchangeably regardless whether a bedroom is shared, although it is common in US universities that having a roommate implies sharing a room together. This article uses the term "roommate" in the US sense of a person one shares a ''residence'' with who is not a relative or
significant other The term significant other (SO) has different uses in psychology and in colloquial language. Colloquially, "significant other" is used as a gender-neutral term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming ...
. The informal term for roommate is roomie, which is commonly used by university students. The most common reason for sharing housing is to reduce the cost of housing. In many rental markets, the monthly rent for a two- or three-bedroom apartment is proportionately less per bedroom than the rent for a one-bedroom apartment (in other words, a three-bedroom flat costs more than a one-bedroom, but not three times as much). By pooling their monthly housing money, a group of people can achieve a lower housing expense at the cost of less privacy. Other motivations are to gain better amenities than those available in single-person housing, to share the work of maintaining a household, and to have the companionship of other people. People become roommates when they move into a rental property, with one or more of them having applied to rent the property through a
real estate agent A real estate agent or real estate broker is a person who represents sellers or buyers of real estate or real property. While a broker may work independently, an agent usually works under a licensed broker to represent clients. Brokers and age ...
, being accepted and having signed a
lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
.


Demographics

Housemates and roommates are typically unmarried young adults, including workers and students. It is not rare for middle-aged and elderly adults who are single, divorced, or widowed to have housemates. Married couples, however, typically discontinue living with roommates, especially when they have children. Those moving to another city or another country may decide to look for a shared house or apartment to avoid
loneliness Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. Loneliness is also described as social paina psychological mechanism which motivates individuals to seek social connections. It is often associated with a perceived lack ...
. Social changes such as the declining affordability of
home ownership Owner-occupancy or home-ownership is a form of housing tenure in which a person, called the owner-occupier, owner-occupant, or home owner, owns the home in which they live. The home can be a house, such as a single-family house, an apartment, c ...
and decreasing
marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...
rates are reasons why people may choose to live with roommates. Despite this rise, shared housing is little researched. Roommates are a fairly common point of reference in Western culture. In the United States, most young adults spend at least a short part of their lives living with roommates after they leave their family's home. Very often this involves moving out of the home and to college, where the primary option for living is with a roommate. Therefore, many novels, movies, plays, and television programs employ roommates as a basic principle or a
plot device A plot device or plot mechanism is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. A clichéd plot device may annoy the reader and a contrived or arbitrary device may confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelie ...
(such as the popular series '' Friends'' or ''
The Big Bang Theory ''The Big Bang Theory'' is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on C ...
''). Sharing a house or a flat is also very common in European countries such as France (French ''colocation'', corenting) or Germany (German ''WG'' for ''Wohngemeinschaft'', living ogethercommunity). Many websites are specialized in finding a flatmate. On the other hand, it is less common for people of any age to live with roommates in some countries, such as Japan, where single-person one-room apartments are plentiful. There are many different forms of flat shares also, from the more established flat shares where the flatmate will get their own room that is furnished to "couch surfing" where people lend their sofa for a short period. Sharehome residents are typically unrelated to each other in that they generally come from different
families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideal ...
, although they may be composed of some
sibling A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separa ...
s and sometimes
single parent A single parent is a person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include divorce, break-up, abandonment, becoming wid ...
s and their children. Perhaps because of the
social cohesion Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main co ...
required for their formation, sharehomes will often be composed of members of the same
peer group In sociology, a peer group is both a social group and a primary group of people who have similar interests ( homophily), age, background, or social status. The members of this group are likely to influence the person's beliefs and behaviour. ...
. For example,
university student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...
s who have relocated to a new area to commence a course of study often need to form a sharehome. Share housing often occurs in the 18–35 age bracket – during a life stage between leaving home and having children. Sharehome residents may have pre-existing
friendship Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague. In some cultures, the concept o ...
s or other
interpersonal relationship The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...
s or they may form new relationships whilst living together. Many
universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
in the United States require first-year students to live in on-campus residence halls, sharing a dormitory room with a same-sex roommate.


Popularity

According to the American Community Survey, 7.7% of Americans lived with a roommate in 2014. From 2000 to 2014, the proportion of Americans living with roommates increased by 13%, revealing that it is an increasingly popular lifestyle choice. The change in the cost of housing makes the consideration of roommates more attractive. As the housing market increases, so too does the roommate ratio rate. When house prices drop, the opposite can be expected. This has been seen extensively in cities such as Washington D.C., Phoenix, and San Diego.
Student exchange A student exchange program is a program in which students from a secondary school (high school) or university study abroad at one of their institution's partner institutions. A student exchange program may involve international travel, but do ...
s are getting more and more popular with globalization and has influenced a lot in the Roommate Boom. The Erasmus exchange program in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
has contributed as being the biggest exchange program in Europe. Exchange students can live in university residences but a growing number want to share apartments with other international students in shared apartments. Roommates and house-sharing are not limited to students and young adults however. American politicians
Chuck Schumer Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is in his fourth Senate term, having held his seat since 1999, an ...
,
William Delahunt William David Delahunt (born July 18, 1941) is an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. He is a former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1997 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Delahunt did not seek re-election ...
, Richard Durbin, and George Miller famously share a house in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, while Congress is in session. In
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n universities and colleges it is quite common that students share their rooms with a couple of others. Usually students in the master or doctoral programs are allocated with own rooms. Sharing an apartment is quite popular by young adults (most of them university students) in countries like
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and Switzerland, while sharing a bedroom is more uncommon.


Cities with most roommates in the United States

The following table lists the top 25 US cities with the highest proportion of people who live with roommates according to the US Census 2016 and a 2017
Zillow Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006, and was created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer ...
housing trends report.


Challenges

One difficulty is finding suitable roommates. Living with a roommate can mean much less privacy than having a residence of one's own, and for some people this can cause a lot of
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
. Another thing to consider when choosing a roommate is how to divide the cost of living. Who pays for what, or are the shared expenses divided between the two or more roommates. Also, the potential roommate should be trusted to pay their share and trusted to pay it on time. Sleeping patterns can also be disrupted when living with a number of people. Some of the challenges that come with share housing may include advertising for, interviewing and choosing potential housemates; sharing communal household goods,
rent Rent may refer to: Economics *Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property *Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production *Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...
(often this may be determined by the size or position of respective bedrooms); sharing
household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...
bills and grocery costs; and sharing housework,
cleaning Cleaning is the process of removing unwanted substances, such as dirt, infectious agents, and other impurities, from an object or environment. Cleaning is often performed for aesthetic, hygienic, functional, environmental, or safety purposes ...
, and cooking responsibilities. Conflicts may arise if, for example, residents have different standards of
cleanliness Cleanliness is both the state of being clean and free from germs, dirt, trash, or waste, and the habit of achieving and maintaining that state. Cleanliness is often achieved through cleaning. Culturally, cleanliness is usually a good quality, as ...
, different
diets The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their ...
, or different hours of employment or study. Guests and partners may also begin to board frequently, which can raise complications pertaining to utility expenses, additional rent and further possible cleaning duties. Often when these responsibilities go untended, friction may result between co-tenants. For this reason, responsibilities should be delegated and fairly assigned as early as possible in any living arrangement with roommates. A clear and defined list of alternating chores and bill lists are easy to see and enforce. Roommates matter, as they have a great impression upon the ones whom they live with and therefore surround themselves by. More and more research has been produced in order to properly understand this impact. The areas of impact can vary greatly in both positive and negative ways; most important is that individuals should be aware of the possible behaviour and social changes that may happen when living with a roommate.


Eating and drinking habits

Living with an individual who exercises and diets can be beneficial because it very often "rubs off" on the other roommates, while a calorie cutting roommate could be a potential negative influence. College is a time that students often start drinking, specifically binge drinking (more than 4 or 5 drinks in a row). By the end of second semester in college 53% of freshman students had binged. Students explained that having a drinking roommate provided a “buddy” to go through it all and was a big influence in the decision to do so. Mood susceptible: "Each happy friend a person has increases that person's probability of being happy by 9 percent and each unhappy friend decreases it by 7 percent," says Nicholas A. Christakis, a co-author of "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives". Whether the roommates are friends or not the interactions and behaviors shared and expressed will undoubtedly have an effect on the roommates. Although shown not to be as impressionable as eating habits, our moods can change, specifically more in roommates based on the others emotions. Effects on studies: Studies showed that having a roommate that plays video games causes the other to most likely participate, which reflected in a half-hour less of studying, also showing GPA's .02 lower than others. When dealing with a college roommate the choice to study or sleep should take precedence over the choice to party or play loud music. This understanding allows those to choose to focus differently on school to do so without harm to the roommate relationship or grades. Addressing an issue: The best approach to address an issue with a roommate is an upfront and in person conversation, preferably a one on one conversation. While approaching the issues understand and respect each other's differences. When discussing the issues allow both sides to express their thoughts and feelings on the issue. And after both listening and speaking to each other present a resolution. and in doing so create a win-win situation this allows for the conflict to be more easily resolved. The resolution may not be the personal idea, but it should help the situation to some degree.


See also

* Tenant *
Household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...
* Home *
Family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
*
Co-living Co-living is a residential community living model that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people living in the same dwelling unit. Generally coliving is a type of intentional community that provides shared housing for people with si ...
*
Cohabitation Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not married, usually couples, live together. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become increas ...
* Stable roommates problem


References

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