More adults living with their parents

A GROWING number of families in which adults aged 20 to 30 live with their parents, are having to negotiate new ways of pooling their resources, according to pioneering research by Loughborough University.

They need to decide, for example, what household items are shared, who should pay for what and what kind of lifestyle for their grown-up children parents should help support.

Two in three single people in their 20s are now living with their parents, which equates to about three million men and women.

Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy investigated what families such as these need as a minimum to live on, and what determines their living standards.

The research, Family sharing – A minimum income standard for people in their 20s living with parents, talked to both young adults and parents living in such households, discussing present-day norms of how they share living arrangements and expenses.

It found that living with your parents in your 20s is seen as a normal expectation, without stigma, for young adults today.

The high cost of renting or buying independent accommodation, and in some cases the desire to save up to achieve such independence in the future, were seen as the driving forces for living ‘at home’ with parents.

The study, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, found that such families make large savings from living together.

Overall, the minimum cost of living for a single person and their parents was calculated as £135-a-week less living together than living separately: minimum weekly costs are £303 for a single person renting their own flat, £472 for a couple renting a family home with an empty room (a total of £775), or £640 for these three people living together.

The biggest saving was rent, accounting for £91 – other savings came mainly from council tax and utilities (£30) and from household goods (£7).

Professor Donald Hirsch, director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy, added: “This is becoming a distinct phase of life for many families, which can last several years. What happens in these years affects not just the lives of people in their early years of adulthood, but also the well-being of parents.”