The growing reluctance of Britain’s 20- and 30-somethings to fly the parental nest was revealed today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in its annual report on the latest social trends.
It said almost a third of men and a fifth of women aged between 20 and 34 live at home with their parents.
Since 2001, the number of young adults continuing to live in the family home increased by 300,000. The ONS said one reason for young people delaying setting up a home of their own was rising participation in higher education. Another was lack of affordable housing. Graduates carrying a burden of student debt found it harder to pay the rising costs of renting or buying property.
The latest available figures were for the second quarter of 2008. They showed 29 percent of men aged 20-34 and 18 percent of women of the same age lived with their parents. This compared with 27 percent of men and 15 percent of women in 2001.
The ONS said: “Leaving home is a way of establishing independence and is an important step in the transition to adulthood. However, young adults are tending to stay in the home longer than their parents did.
