The dependent generation: half young European adults live with their parents
Eurofound report says it's not just people finishing
education who struggle to live independently, but those in their 30s too
An Italian family eating their meal. In Italy, 79% of
young adults were living with their parents in 2011, according to Eurofound.
Shiv Malik
@shivmalik
Mon 24 Mar
2014 18.01 GMT
Almost half
of Europe's young adults are living with their parents, new data suggests – a
record level of dependency that has sobering social and demographic
implications for the continent.
One of the
most comprehensive social surveys of 28 European countries reveals on Tuesday
that the percentage of people aged 18-30 who were still living with their
parents had risen to 48%, or 36.7 million people, by 2011, in tandem with
levels of deprivation and unemployment that surged during five years of
economic crisis.
The data
from EU agency Eurofound, obtained by the Guardian, shows that few countries
are immune and that the phenomenon is not exclusive to the debt-laden
Mediterranean rim. The figures show large rises in the number of stay-at-home
twentysomethings in countries such as Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium and
Austria. In Italy, nearly four-fifths (79%) of young adults were living with
their parents.
However,
Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK saw decreases in their numbers
over that period – in Britain, the figure fell from 30% to 26%.
One of the
report's authors, Anna Ludwinek, said: "The situation of youth has really
fundamentally changed. And it looks different from the situation of their
parents and grandparents.
"It's
not only the world of work that has changed but society is changing, so the
transitions are becoming much more unpredictable; people are not having a job
for life or live in one place for life."
She said it
was a myth that living with children and parents in a multi-generational
household was all "happy clappy": "Really we see that
multi-generational households have very low life satisfaction and a very high
level of deprivation and perceived social exclusion.
"One
could argue that if you are at the age of 30 and are still living with your
parents and, on top of that you have your own family, it is really difficult to
start an independent life."
The data
underscores the predicament of "Generation Y" – who are better
educated than their forebears, but condemned nonetheless to dimmer prospects
than their parents' generation.
The growing
phenomenon of adults stuck living in their childhood bedrooms has, moreover,
raised concerns about birthrates and demographics in an ageing continent.
The trend
for parental dependency, the report's authors say, cannot be solely explained
by increases in the number of people studying later into their life, as
millions more 25- to 29-year-olds have also been found to be living with mum
and dad.
For women
aged 25-29, this figure rose by five points to 26% while the proportion for men
is up three points to 34%. Even among those who have a job, the overall figure
rose one point to 34%.
While young
adults tend to be as trusting of institutions as their parents, faith in their
national government, legal system and the press all fell among the young
between 2007 and 2011.
Bobby Duffy
from pollsters Ipsos Mori said he had found similar results in the UK:
"Our generational analysis of attitudes in the UK has shown how much
pressure the youngest generation feel under – they're the most likely to see
themselves as poor even a good few years into their careers, which is
historically unusual.
"This
echoes the Eurofound research – it's not just those straight out of school or
university who are finding it more difficult to get going with independent
lives, it's people well into their 20s and 30s."
He said
these results demonstrated that class and background was becoming even more of
a factor in later life success.
"Those
from better off or higher social class families will be much better set to deal
with the pressures. The real story here isn't about generation alone; it's
about how it interacts with wealth and class, leaving some younger people
behind."
Peter Matjašic,
president of the European Youth Forum, which represents young people across the
EU, said that Europe's youth were still "in the full force of the
storm" despite talk of a recovery.
He said
that too many were still unemployed or, if they were in work, this was
"precarious and often without the safety net of proper social
security".
"This
report makes worrying reading because it provides more evidence that, at the
time that young people should be becoming autonomous adults making their own
way in the world, they are forced to continue to live at home with their
parents for much longer than before, and this is now becoming the norm in many
countries where it was not common practice before."
He called
on European leaders to implement concrete measures and said that young European
adults should not be discriminated against on the basis in matters of social
security spending.
The
Eurofound report also reveals that 49% of all Europe's young adults were living
in households experiencing some form of deprivation. In 2011, 27% of young
adults were living in "mid level" deprivation – meaning they could
not replace worn out furniture, were unable to invite friends over and could
not afford to take an annual holiday.
More than a
fifth (22%) were found to be experiencing "serious deprivation" and
were struggling to heat their home or buy new clothes. This figure rose by six
percentage points since 2007.
The rise in
deprivation for young adults was worst in countries such as Greece (+15 points)
Spain (+20) and the UK (+10).
Though
their situation is less acute, when compared with other generations, European
youth fare worst overall. "In nearly all countries young people are more
likely to experience moderate levels of deprivation than the general
population, but they are less likely to experience the more serious forms of
deprivation," the report says. From the survey of 7,300 young adults for
the European Quality of Life Survey, the report's authors point towards a
growing trend of multigenerational households in which parents are increasingly
having to house both their children and their grandchildren.
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