EU study: How long do young people wait to move out of their parents house by country

Ioana Erdei 15/05/2018 | 12:18

In the European Union (EU), over one young adult out of four (28.5 percent) aged 25 to 34 were still living with their parents in 2016. Across the EU, this share ranged from less than 10 percent in the Nordic Member States – Denmark (3.8 percent), Finland (4.3 percent) and Sweden (6.0 percent) – to about half in Croatia (58.7 percent), Slovakia (55.5 percent), Greece (55.0 percent), Malta (51.5 percent) and Italy (48.9p ercent). In Romania, women move out at 25, but men wait until they are 30 years old, according to the European Commission.

Overall, it is estimated that young people leave the parental household at the age of 26 years on average in the EU. But significant discrepancies can be observed between Member States.

In the Nordic Member States and Luxembourg, they flee in their early 20s…

In 2017 in the EU, young people left home earliest in the three Nordic Member States – Sweden (21.0 years), Denmark (21.1 years) and Finland (21.9 years) – as well as in Luxembourg (21.4 years). They were followed by those in Estonia (23.1 years), Belgium (23.4 years), the Netherlands (23.6 years), Germany (23.7), France (24.0 years) and the United Kingdom (24.4 years).

… But wait until their 30s in Malta, Croatia, Malta, Slovakia and Italy

At the opposite end of the scale, young adults in Malta and Croatia remained the longest in the parental household. They left home at an average age of 32.2 and 31.9 respectively. Young adults in Slovakia (30.8 years), Italy (30.1 years), Greece (29.4 years), Spain (29.3 years), Portugal (29.2 years) and Bulgaria (28.9 years) also left the parental home at a later stage.