In 2020, as the pandemic upended the U.S. economy, 52% of Americans aged 18 to 29 were living with a parent, the highest share recorded since the Great Depression era, surpassing even the previous historical peak of 48% in the 1940 census.
Across the Atlantic, the pattern is far more entrenched and structural rather than crisis-driven: in 24 of 29 European countries studied by Eurostat, more than one in three adults aged 18 to 34 lived in their parents’ home in 2021, including more than seven in ten young adults in Croatia (77%), Greece (73%), and Portugal (72%). By 2024, EU-wide data put the average age of leaving the parental home at 26.2 years, ranging from 21.4 in Finland to 31.3 in Croatia.
How Is Living With Parents Measured?
Researchers distinguish between several related but distinct measures: the share of young adults living in the parental home at a point in time, the average age at which young adults leave the parental home, and, a narrower, more specific measure, the share of adult children who are financially dependent on parents regardless of residence.
Ireland’s Central Statistics Office has documented how much these measures can diverge: 2022 Census data found 41% of 18-to-34-year-olds physically living with parents, while the EU-SILC survey measuring financial dependence in the same period found roughly two in three young adults in that age range counted as living with parents, a gap explained largely by the SILC survey’s inclusion of financially dependent students who have physically moved out for education but remain counted as living with parents under that survey’s methodology.
How Common Is the Pattern?
Prevalence varies dramatically by country and region. Pew Research Center’s analysis of 2021 Eurostat and U.S. Census Bureau data found young adults in the United States were, perhaps surprisingly, less likely to live with parents than young adults in most of Europe.
Within Europe, the divide runs largely along a north-south and east-west axis: fewer than one in five young adults in Finland (18%), Sweden (17%), and Denmark (16%) lived with parents in 2021, while more than seven in ten did in Croatia, Greece, Serbia, and Italy.
Share of Young Adults (18–34) Living With Parents, Selected Countries, 2021
| Country | Share Living With Parents |
|---|---|
| Croatia | 77% |
| Greece | 73% |
| Portugal | 72% |
| Serbia | 71% |
| Italy | 71% |
| Spain | ~65% (comparative estimate) |
| Poland | ~60% (comparative estimate, Balkans/Eastern Europe range) |
| Ireland (Census, 18–34) | 41% |
| Netherlands | ~11-35% depending on age band measured |
| Finland | 18% |
| Sweden | 17% |
| Denmark | 16% |
| EU-wide average (18-34) | 49% |
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Eurostat and U.S. Census Bureau data, 2021; Ireland CSO Census 2022; Eurostat/Germanpedia EU-wide 2024 estimate.
Average Age of Leaving the Parental Home, EU Countries, 2024
| Country | Average Age of Leaving Home (Years) |
|---|---|
| Croatia | 31.3 (highest in EU) |
| Slovakia | 30.9 |
| Greece | 30.7 |
| Italy | 30.1 |
| Spain | 30.0 |
| Bulgaria | ~30.0 |
| EU-wide average | 26.2 |
| Estonia | 22.4 |
| Sweden | 21.9 |
| Denmark | 21.7 |
| Finland | 21.4 (lowest in EU) |
Source: Eurostat, “Young people – housing conditions,” Statistics Explained, 2025 (2024 data).
Which Age Groups Are Most Likely to Live With Parents?
Eurostat’s more granular age breakdowns show a steep decline in co-residence with age across the EU: more than 95% of those aged 16–19 live with parents, dropping to more than 85% for those 20–24, and still over 60% (59.2% in Ireland specifically) for those 25–29.
By 2024, the EU-wide average age at which 50% of young people no longer live with a parent stood at 26.2 years, with the highest ages recorded in Croatia (31.3), Slovakia (30.9), Greece (30.7), Italy (30.1), and Spain (30.0), and the lowest in the Nordic countries.
Why Are Adults Staying at Home?
Several overlapping and mutually reinforcing factors drive extended parental co-residence:
- Housing costs. Eurostat identifies housing affordability as a central factor, noting that young people who leave home earlier face a materially higher risk of housing cost overburden, defined as spending 40% or more of disposable income on housing, which affected 9.7% of EU 15-to-29-year-olds in 2024, compared with 8.2% of the general population.
- Education. Extended tertiary education delays labor market entry and, in many survey methodologies, technically counts financially dependent students as living with parents even when physically residing elsewhere.
- Employment conditions. Academic research using 2011–2019 Eurostat data found the “nesting” phenomenon was most pronounced and growing fastest among the unemployed and those without permanent employment contracts.
- Marriage and partnership timing. As the median age at first marriage and partnership formation rises across most high-income countries, adults remain unpartnered, and therefore less likely to form an independent household through marriage, for longer.
- Cultural norms. Southern and Eastern European countries show consistently higher parental co-residence rates than Northern European countries even after accounting for economic differences, reflecting durable cultural expectations around when and why young adults are expected to leave home.
The Role of Gender and Marriage
Research covering EU countries from 2011 to 2019 found a persistent gender gap in “nesting” rates, with 27.3% of women aged 25–34 living with parents in 2019 compared with 23.9% of men, but with women’s nesting rate growing faster (0.70% average annual growth versus 0.17% for men) over the study period, suggesting the gender gap in parental co-residence has been narrowing over time even as overall co-residence rates rise.
Parents and Adult Children in the Same Household
Co-residence is not a one-directional dependency relationship in every case. Adult children living with parents frequently contribute domestically and, where employed, financially to shared household costs, Eurofound research specifically tracking employed 25-to-34-year-olds living in the parental home documented rising rates of this specific combination across EU member states, indicating that a meaningful share of co-resident adult children are financially self-sufficient but choosing, or economically constrained toward, continued co-residence rather than being simply dependent.
Geographic Differences
The starkest geographic divide runs through Europe itself, but broader global patterns also matter: countries across much of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East show extended parental co-residence as a longstanding cultural norm rather than a recent economic trend, a pattern more comparable to the drivers behind Southern and Eastern European co-residence rates than to the housing-cost-driven dynamics more prominent in recent U.S. and Northern European trends.
What Does This Mean for Household Formation?
Extended parental co-residence has direct downstream implications for broader demographic trends: delayed household formation is closely linked to delayed marriage and childbearing, since establishing an independent household has historically preceded or coincided with family formation in most high-income countries.
As the EU-wide average age of leaving the parental home has risen, researchers studying fertility and family formation have increasingly examined delayed household independence as one contributing factor among several, alongside education, career establishment, and housing affordability, behind rising average ages at first birth and, ultimately, rising childlessness documented in research on shrinking family networks.
Conclusion
The rise of adult children living with parents reflects a genuinely global but highly uneven demographic shift, ranging from the pandemic-driven U.S. peak of 52% among 18-to-29-year-olds to the structurally embedded 70%-plus co-residence rates found across much of Southern and Eastern Europe. Housing costs, extended education, employment precarity, and delayed marriage all contribute, but their relative weight differs sharply by country, meaning any single explanation for the trend, however intuitive, will fail to account for the wide variation the data actually shows.
As parental co-residence continues rising in a growing number of countries, its downstream effects on household formation, marriage timing, and ultimately fertility make it a demographic trend worth tracking well beyond its immediate housing policy implications.
Key Findings
- 52% of U.S. adults aged 18–29 lived with a parent in 2020, the highest share since the Great Depression-era peak of 48% in 1940.
- More than seven in ten young adults aged 18–34 lived with parents in 2021 in Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, and Italy, compared with fewer than one in five in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark; the EU-wide average across all member states stood at 49% as of 2024.
- The average age of leaving the parental home ranges from 21.4 in Finland to 31.3 in Croatia, a gap of nearly a decade across EU member states as of 2024.
- The EU-wide average age of leaving the parental home reached 26.2 years in 2024, ranging from 21.4 in Finland to 31.3 in Croatia.
- 9.7% of EU 15-to-29-year-olds lived in households spending 40% or more of disposable income on housing in 2024, compared with 8.2% of the general population.
- The gender gap in parental co-residence among 25-to-34-year-olds has been narrowing across the EU, with women’s co-residence rate growing faster than men’s between 2011 and 2019.
- Employed young adults living with parents represent a growing and specifically tracked EU demographic, indicating financial self-sufficiency does not always translate into independent household formation.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How many adults live with their parents?
Rates vary enormously by country: 52% of U.S. 18-to-29-year-olds lived with a parent in 2020 (a pandemic-era peak), while EU rates in 2021 ranged from 16% in Denmark to 77% in Croatia among 18-to-34-year-olds.
2. Why are young adults staying home longer?
Housing costs and affordability, extended education, precarious or unstable employment, delayed marriage, and cultural norms are all documented contributing factors, with their relative importance varying significantly by country.
3. At what age do adults typically leave home?
The EU-wide average was 26.2 years in 2024, ranging from 21.4 in Finland to 31.3 in Croatia; comparable single-point U.S. data is less standardized but shows substantial recent increases in co-residence among 18-to-29-year-olds.
4. Does living with parents delay marriage?
Delayed household formation and delayed marriage are closely linked demographically, though the direction of causation varies by individual circumstance and country.
5. Is multigenerational living increasing?
Yes, particularly in the United States, where the broader multigenerational household population, not limited to young adults specifically, has grown substantially since the 1970s, as documented in coverage of the multigenerational population.
6. Are men or women more likely to live with parents?
EU data shows women aged 25–34 had a modestly higher co-residence rate than men in 2019 (27.3% versus 23.9%), though the gap has been narrowing over time.
7. Do employed young adults still live with their parents?
Yes, in growing numbers in several EU countries, indicating that financial independence does not automatically translate into independent household formation, likely reflecting housing cost pressures.
8. Which countries have the highest rates of young adults living with parents?
Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, and Italy all show more than seven in ten young adults aged 18–34 living with parents, the highest documented rates in Europe.
9. Is the U.S. rate of young adults living with parents typical globally?
No, Pew Research Center’s comparative analysis found U.S. young adults were actually less likely to live with parents than their counterparts across most of Europe, even during the pandemic-era U.S. peak.
10. How does housing affordability affect this trend?
Eurostat data shows young people who leave the parental home earlier face substantially higher risk of housing cost overburden, and rising housing costs are consistently identified as a central driver of extended co-residence.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, “Young adults less likely to live in parents’ home in US than most of Europe,” 2023 (analysis of 2021 data).
- Eurostat, “Young people – housing conditions,” Statistics Explained, 2025 (2024 data).
- Statista, “Share of young adults living with a parent” (U.S. historical data).
- Central Statistics Office (Ireland), “Young adults aged 18 to 34 years living at home with their parents,” Information Note, 2024.
- Eurofound, “Young people aged 25–34 in employment and living in the parental home by EU Member State,” 2024.
- Research (ResearchGate/academic), “Generation of Young Adults Living with Their Parents in European Union Countries,” 2011–2019 data analysis.
