Data extracted in August 2025.
Planned article update: September 2026.
Highlights
In 2024, young people across the EU left their parental home on average at the age of 26.2 years, ranging from 31.3 years in Croatia to 21.4 years in Finland.
In 2024, 26.5% of young people (aged 15-29 years) in the EU lived in overcrowded dwellings, compared with 16.9% of the overall population.
In 2024, 9.7% of people aged 15-29 in the EU lived in households that spent 40% or more of their disposable income on housing – this share is 8.2% in the overall population.
Young people’s approach to moving out of the family home varies across the EU: in some parts of the EU, it is typical to stay with the parental family for longer, hence increasing the probability of overcrowding. In other parts of the EU European Union (EU), young people prefer to move out sooner and face a higher risk of housing cost overburden. Several factors can influence this decision: being in a relationship, the situation in the job market, cultural habits, and financial aspects related to housing costs and the cost of living in general. This article presents an analysis of the age when young people in the EU typically take this decision. It also presents 2 closely related indicators that can describe young people’s housing conditions: the overcrowding rate and the housing cost overburden rate.
Further analysis related to this topic can be found in the following Statistics Explained articles
- Living conditions in Europe - housing - Chapter: Key findings , which analyses the housing situation for the population overall
- Young people - family and society, which discusses the family situation for young Europeans
According to the latest Eurostat data, the average age of leaving the parental household was 26.2 years across the EU in 2024, with particularly high values in the south and east of the EU. At the same time, both the burden of housing costs and the overcrowding rates remain disproportionately high for young adults.
Leaving the parental home
In 2024, across the EU, the average age of young people who left their parental home – the age at which 50% of the population no longer live in a household with their parent(s) – was 26.2. However, this average varied among EU countries. The highest average ages, at 30 or over, were recorded in Croatia (31.3), Slovakia (30.9), Greece (30.7), Italy (30.1) and Spain (30.0). In contrast, the lowest average ages, all under 23, were registered in Finland (21.4), Denmark (21.7), Sweden (21.9) and Estonia (22.4). The situation in countries on both ends of the spectrum tends to be stable over time, pointing to different practices concerning co-residence of generations among EU countries.
Source: Eurostat (yth_demo_30)
Looking at this from a different angle, with regard to the relationship with the parental household, several patterns emerge when we break down young people into smaller age groups (16-19-, 20-24- and 25-29-year-olds – see Figure 1). In Croatia, Slovakia, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece and Ireland, most young people (more than 80% of 16-29-year-olds) live with their parents or contribute to / benefit from the household income. This corresponds to more than 95% of those aged 16-19, more than 85% of those aged 20-24, and more than 60% (59.2% in the case of Ireland) of those aged 25-29. However, on the other end of the spectrum, in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, less than 93% of 16 19-year-olds live with their parents. Furthermore, in the group of 20-24-year-olds, fewer than 40% live with their parents, and for the age group 25-29, these countries have the lowest shares in the EU: 4.3% live with their parents in Denmark, 6.4% in Finland and 12.1% in Sweden.
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Source: Eurostat (ilc_lpvs08)
Overcrowding rate
In 2024, 26.5% of young people (aged 15-29 years) in the EU lived in overcrowded dwellings.
The overcrowding rate is defined as the percentage of the population living in an overcrowded household. A person is considered as living in an overcrowded household if it does not have at a minimum number of rooms available that is equal to the sum of
- one room for the household
- one room per couple in the household
- one room per single person aged 18 or over
- one room per pair of single people of the same gender between 12 and 17
- one room per single person between 12 and 17 and not included in the previous category
- one room per pair of children under 12
In 2024, the overcrowding rate for young people aged 15-29 years stood at 26.5%, 0.5 percentage points (pp) higher than in 2023. Across all EU countries, young people were more likely than the population overall to live in overcrowded households. The overcrowding rate for young people was 9.6 pp higher than the overcrowding rate for the total population (16.9%). There are considerable differences in overcrowding rates between EU countries. In 2024, in Cyprus, 4.1% of young people lived in an overcrowded household, while in Romania, the rate reached 58.3%. More than half of young people also lived in overcrowded households in Latvia and Bulgaria, and more than a third in Lithuania, Italy, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia and Greece (see Figure 2).
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The highest difference between the rates for young people and those for the total population were seen in Bulgaria (19.4 pp difference), Greece (18.5 pp difference) and Romania (17.6 pp difference). In relative terms, the difference between the overcrowding rate for young people and that for the general population were highest in Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland, where young people were twice more likely to live in an overcrowded dwelling than the general population. Figure 3 presents the overcrowding rate for young people broken down by smaller age groups (15 19-, 20-24- and 25-29-year-olds). Generally, in countries where the overcrowding rate for young people is high, 15-19 is the most affected age group. In Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Croatia, more than half of 15-19-year-olds live in overcrowded households (ranging from 65.5% in Romania to 50.6% in Croatia). In most countries the overcrowding rate reduces with age. The biggest difference between 15-19- and 25–29-year-olds is seen in Latvia (21.8 pp difference) followed by Lithuania and Czechia (both at 17.99 pp) and Romania (14.8 pp). By contrast, in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, overcrowding rates are highest for 20-24-year-olds. The difference between this age group and those aged 15-19 is 15.4 pp in Finland, 13.9 pp in Denmark and 13.5 pp in Sweden. In Finland and Sweden, the overcrowding rate for 20-24-year-olds is more than twice as high as that for 15-19-year-olds. In other countries where the overcrowding rates are lower, the differences among age groups are smaller as well.
,_by_age_group,_2024_(%25).png)
Housing cost overburden rate
In 2024, 9.7% of young people (aged 15-29) in the EU lived in households that spent 40% or more of their disposable income on housing. This figure is 1.5 pp higher than for the total population.
The indicator housing cost overburden rate shows the percentage of the population living in households where housing costs equate to more than 40 % of a household’s disposable income.
In 2024, 8.2% of the EU’s population lived in households that spent 40% or more of their disposable income on housing (see Figure 4). For young people, the share was 1.5 pp higher, at 9.7%. However, there are considerable differences between EU countries. Croatia (2.1%), Cyprus (2.8%) and Slovenia (3.0%) had the lowest housing cost overburden rate for young people, while Greece (30.3%) and Denmark (28.9%) had by far the highest. Eight countries had rates above the EU average.
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In 2024, in 16 EU countries, the housing cost overburden rate was higher among those aged 15-29 than for the population overall. The biggest difference between both groups was 14.3 pp in Denmark, followed by the Netherlands with 8.4 pp. In relative terms, the biggest difference was in the Netherlands, as well as in Finland and Denmark, where the rate for young people was more than 1.9 times higher than that for the population overall. Unlike the overcrowding rate, 11 EU countries recorded (slightly) higher housing cost overburden rates for the population overall than for young people. Among these, Croatia had the biggest difference (-1.6 pp). Figure 5 provides a more detailed analysis of the situation, breaking the group down further into smaller groups (15-19, 20-24 and 25-29). Among these groups, the housing cost overburden rate was highest for 20-24-year-olds (11.7%) and lowest for 15-19-year-olds (7.2%). This was the case in most EU countries.
,_by_age_group,_2024_(%25).png)
In some of the countries where young people tend to move out of the parental home sooner, such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Finland (see Map 1), the housing cost overburden for young people is higher.
Countries where young people move out of the parental home later, like Cyprus, Croatia and Italy, tend to report lower levels of housing cost overburden. However, in Greece and Bulgaria, despite the higher average age of people leaving the family home, the housing cost overburden for young people remains high.
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
The data used in this article are derived from the EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) and the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS).
EU-SILC is the main European source of information for statistics related to income, living conditions and social inclusion. The legal basis for these data is Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 establishing a common framework for European statistics related to people and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples.
In the survey a person is included in the parental household if they are
• living with their parents
• working away from the family home during the week, but usually return to the family home at the weekends
• primary and secondary school pupils away from the family home during the school term
• living outside the family home for an extended period of time for work reasons, but are significantly contributing to the household income and are not usual residents of another private household
• students in higher education who are away from their family home while at college or university but benefit from the household income and are not usual residents of another private household
The EU-LFS is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 and above. The EU-LFS is based on the same target populations and uses the same definitions in all countries, meaning that the results are comparable between countries. Yearly results are obtained as averages of the four quarters in the year.
The EU aggregate is a population-weighted average of individual national figures.
The reference population covered by these data comprises all private households and their current members residing in EU Member States, EFTA countries and EU candidate countries at the time of data collection. Persons living in collective households and in institutions are excluded from the target population.
Context
In 2024, there were 73.4 million people aged between 15 and 29 in the EU [1], and, as in many other aspects in life, they can face challenges with housing. Housing conditions are a fundamental aspect of living standards and social integration for individuals. For young people starting life away from the family home, finding and sustaining accommodation can be a major challenge. In the EU’s European Pillar for Social Rights action plan, one of the headline targets is: ‘lifting at least 15 million people out of the risk of poverty and social exclusion by 2030’. For each target, a group of indicators was developed to monitor and support the strategy. Housing conditions are included within the indicators related to material deprivation. Housing issues are also addressed in the EU youth strategy adopted for the 2019-2027 period.
Footnotes
- According to Eurostat’s demographic data: Child and youth population on 1 January by sex and age [YTH_DEMO_010__custom_2164673] ↑
Explore further
Other articles
Theme entry page
Online publications
Statistical articles
- Children at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion
- Living conditions in Europe — housing
- Living conditions in Europe — material deprivation and economic strain
- Material deprivation statistics — early results
- Migrant integration statistics — housing
- Living conditions in Europe - poverty and social exclusion
Database
- Youth (yth), see:
- Youth social inclusion (yth_incl)
- Living conditions (ilc_lv)
- Housing conditions (ilc_lvho)
- Material deprivation (ilc_md)
- Housing deprivation (ilc_mdho)
- Living conditions (ilc_lv)
Thematic section
Publications
Methodology
- Income and living conditions(ilc) (ESMS metadata file — ilc_sieusilc)