The advantages are obvious: the laundry is washed, the food is cooked – and the rent is unbeatably cheap. At least that’s the cliché about the motives of young adults who don’t want to leave home. After all, more than one in four 25-year-olds in Germany was still living with their parents last year (27.3 percent). Among the 30-year-olds it was still 9.2 percent, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden. And yet another prejudice is confirmed by the statistics: sons stay longer in the parental home than daughters. They move out at the age of 24.5 on average, young women at 23.0. That’s a year and a half difference.
The average age when moving out in Germany is 23.8 years, regardless of gender. Compared to previous decades, the trend is actually that statistically speaking, young adults are moving out earlier. And this despite the fact that there is not enough affordable housing and the cost of living has risen sharply, says youth researcher Klaus Hurrelmann. He sees the trend that statistics have recorded over the past five years as positive. The previous development, that young men in particular lived in their children’s rooms for a long time, had worried him: “The independence is then not at the necessary level.” The development of a strong personality, which is also important for equal partner relationships, is missing.
In comparison, moving out is relatively early at an average of 23.8 years; the average for the entire European Union is 26.4 years, as the Federal Office reports, citing estimates from the EU statistical authority Eurostat. This is mainly due to the southern and eastern European countries. In Croatia, the average departure age was 33.4, the highest in the EU, followed by Slovakia at 30.8 and Greece at 30.7.
On the other hand, young people in northern European countries fledge earlier than in Germany: in Finland at an average age of 21.3 years, in Sweden at 21.4 years and in Denmark at 21.7 years, as the Federal Office announced. The trend that young women are more likely to take the step into self-employment is confirmed in all EU countries. Researcher Hurrelmann explains that young people in Southern and Eastern Europe live longer at home with the stronger attachment to traditional family forms such as the extended family. In Scandinavia, on the other hand, the socio-political focus is more on the individual.