More young Aussies ‘delaying adulthood’ and staying at home

Record numbers of young adults are choosing to stay in the family home for longer, delaying ­marriage and children.

Karen Shaw with her daughter Portia Galloway. Picture: Adam Yip

Record numbers of young adults are choosing to stay in the family home for longer, delaying ­marriage and children and ­“living a little” before they settle down.

The latest data from the Melbourne Institute’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics survey shows the number of young adults living at home has increased dramatically since the first survey in 2001, when 47 per cent of men and 37 per cent of women aged 18-29 lived with their parents.

Today’s figures show that in 2017, 56 per cent of men and 54 per cent of women in that age group lived with their parents.

The biggest increase in those staying at home has been among women, with a jump of 48 per cent since 2001. (About a quarter of women aged 22-25 are studying full-time.)

And the data shows that both men and women are staying for longer, with women leaving the family home on average, at 24.2 years of age, about two years longer than in 2001, and young men at 23.5 years, four months longer than in 2001.

About one-third of men aged between 26 and 29 years old, and about 20 per cent of women in that age bracket, still live at home with their parents.

Researchers believe young Australians are taking longer to enter the type of living arrangements that have long defined adulthood.

“People are tending to marry and have children later, which I think could be characterised as part of a preference to delayed adulthood,” Melbourne Institute deputy director Roger Wilkins said.

18-29 still living at home with parents

Professor Wilkins said more young adults wanted “to live a ­little” before they settled down, choosing to travel and enjoy being single. “Achieving that is easier to do if you live with your parents (and) more of your income is discretionary,” he said.

But a lot of “accommodating parents” were also contributing to the phenomenon. “I suppose a lot of their parents are baby boomers, who are known to be doing quite well economically,” he said.

“So, therefore, they’re choosing to spend some of their good economic circumstances on their adult children.”

Portia Galloway, 23, moved back into her mother’s place in Clovelly in Sydney’s east after she completed her degree at the University of Wollongong.

Ms Galloway said she decided to move back in with her mum because of the high cost of living as well as her not wanting to part from her four-year-old staffordshire bull terrier cross, Indi.

“It’s really expensive to live in Sydney,” she said.

“I also have a pet, so I find it ­really hard to find a good place.”

The full-time marketing co-­ordinator said living at home made it easier to save money.

She wants to buy her own place as well as travel, but living with her mother wasn’t always easy.

“It’s been really good because Mum helps me out with a lot of stuff, but it’s a bit tricky with privacy,” she said.

“I guess being an adult I do sometimes feel like a child with her doing my washing and cooking for me.”

Ms Galloway’s mother, Karen Shaw, said she liked having her daughter back home, but said it was a bit of work. “I think when they come home they revert to ‘Mum will do it’,” she said.

“I haven’t seen too much cleaning done, in fact I’ve got the duty of walking her dog.”

Ms Shaw, a real estate agent, said she bought her first house at the age of 23 but entering the property market was harder now.

“To save for a deposit, if you were paying rent, you just couldn’t achieve it,” she said, “because the median price is a million bucks.”

Ms Galloway does not pay rent but will start soon at the request of her mother.

About 25 per cent of young adults are in casual employment.