JOINT family was one of the better constituents and binding blocks of Indian society for centuries. Consisting of three or four generations living under one roof, it bonded them into a larger entity, sustained positive relationships, and pooled individual resources into one economic whole.Socially speaking, perhaps its best characteristic was that it took care of the weaker members — the infants, the old, the sick or otherwise disabled, the unemployed, the indigent — and ensured that they too were cared for and lived a dignified life, something sadly lacking in modern societies.I feel my father’s generation was perhaps the last joint family generation. He grew up in a sprawling family consisting of his parents, four siblings, innumerable uncles, aunts and their families, and a couple of near-invisible widows. They all lived together in happy chaos in a huge haveli my grandfather had built in his village in Fatehpur district of UP. God only knows how the family’s finances were organised.One word of caution, however: don’t for a moment think that it was run on democratic lines — no, sir, it was a patriarchal autocracy. My grandfather’s word was the law and everyone accepted it because it was a mutually beneficial autocracy. No other system would have worked half as well!The Indian joint family started fraying, I suspect, in the 1960s and 1970s, and was more or less dead by the late 1990s. I’m sure sociologists have identified the reasons, but it was an inevitable consequence of “development”.Things started changing with my generation, the Baby Boomers. Education, mobility, job opportunities, all expanded. Youngsters started leaving, first for better education and then jobs, and settled down in places distant from their parental houses. This trend only expanded with the next generation, the millennials. Joint families almost disappeared and were replaced by “nuclear” ones. Loneliness for abandoned parents became collateral damage.This social evolution was inevitable also as a consequence of the improvement in girls’ education. They were no longer content to let early marriage define their lives: they sought independent careers, and their own homes.How and where couples lived was decided not by parents, but by economics — jobs, salaries, career prospects, and the desire to raise their own families without parental interference.But the wheel is coming full circle with Gen Z, and ironically, the same forces that drove them away from the joint family system are now forcing them back to it! More and more young adults in their late twenties and early thirties, employed and unemployed, married or single, are now coming back to live with their parents. This is confirmed both statistically and anecdotally. Research shows that 70-80 per cent of young adults live with their parents, as do 20 per cent of young couples.In my own social and family circles, I find this is true in at least one out of every two families (including my own).The reasons are varied, both economic and social. Both boys and girls are marrying late. The mean marriage age for girls has gone up to 22.9 years (24 to 27.5 for girls in urban areas), and for boys to 29 years (early 30s for urban-based males). Being unmarried means they continue to live with their parents. Conversely, divorce rates are going up too — from 1.1 per cent in 1990 to 1.6 per cent now. Divorce means the separated entities again return to the safe harbour of their parents (especially if there are kids involved).Joblessness is another reason — 40 per cent of India’s graduates are unemployed, and a large cohort of those employed are barely able to subsist on the wages they get, especially in urban areas. A new Niti Aayog report states that 8.7 crore youth (between the ages of 18 and 29) are in the NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) category. They have no choice but to live with their parents. AI is beginning to exert its malevolent effect: big tech companies have already cut tens of thousands of jobs. Real estate, whether owned or rented, has become so prohibitively expensive in even Tier 2 or 3 cities that living separately is just a dream for most youngsters.The costs of domestic household support or for child rearing are unaffordable. At these prices, even ageing parents and their cluttered houses start looking very attractive, and their expertise in bringing up kids is simply irreplaceable! So the joint family is suddenly back in business.And guess what? It suits us ageing Baby Boomers too. The empty nest is full again, the creeping loneliness is banished, life acquires meaning. It’s a win-win situation: for the youngsters it provides a material safety net, for the parents it fills an emotional vacuum. But there’s a catch, as there usually is in all good things!Nature did not intend for progeny to live with their progenitors for all time. Too many adults living together generates tensions, arising from a dozen differing perceptions of personal space, views and opinions, eating habits, financial matters, etc. The joint families of my father’s era resolved these tensions by having one dominant authority — the head of the family — whose word was final.That is no longer the case. Youngsters of today are taught to question, not accept things at face value, speak their mind, not acquiesce to authority blindly. This is anathema for joint families, and I see it playing out in many families. It will need a lot of patience, understanding, give-and-take, genuine care and respect for each other for Phase 2 of the joint family system to succeed.I really don’t know how it will work out. I hope it does because happy, functional families make for a stable social order, something this increasingly fractured world badly needs.— The writer is a retired IAS officer