Living in and Leaving the Parental Home

Abstract

Across Europe, North America and Australasia, the overwhelming majority of young people live in the parental home during their late teens, with many residing with parents well into their twenties. In 1995, 90 per cent of 15-19-year-olds growing up in European Union member states lived with their parents, along with 65 per cent of their 20-24-year-old peers (European Commission, 1997). In the United States, 56 per cent of 18-24-year-old young men and 43 per cent of their female peers lived in the parental home in 2000 (Fields and Casper, 2001), whilst in Australia in the same year, 45 per cent of 20-24-year-olds did so (Hillman and Marks, 2002). Living in the parental home in one’s late teens and early twenties is, then, a common feature of growing up in western societies, but the day-to-day reality of such arrangements is something about which we know surprisingly little. Indeed, in the absence of any objective benchmark, the majority of people would probably describe their experiences of home life during this period in similar language to that used by Ellie above:‘nothing special’, ‘fairly happy’, ‘fairly normal’, despite varying degrees of family tension.