‘Hotel of mum and dad’ in UK at its fullest in two decades, study finds

The “hotel of mum and dad” is the busiest it has been for two decades as an increasing number of young adults in the UK choose – or are forced by low wages and rising rents – to live with their parents, research has found.

The prohibitive cost of renting, let alone buying, a home explains why more twenty- and thirtysomethings are “co-residing” with family at an age when their parents would have been living independently, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said.

An estimated 1.7 million adults in the UK aged 24-34 are living with parents, almost 20% of the total cohort and an increase of 450,000 since 2006, when 13% of this age group lived at home. The trend is most acute in London and other areas where housing costs are high.

The cohort of young adults who return to the family home to live after university, relationship breakups, or other life shocks has been dubbed the “boomerang generation”.

Previous studies suggested the phenomenon of co-residence over the first 10 years of adulthood was likely to be permanent, and could require a recalibration of expectations and life plans for parents and offspring.

The IFS said the benefits of staying at home were not evenly distributed. Of parents who live with their young adult children, nearly two-thirds own their own home, while 25% are in social housing.

Young adults living in London might expect their stay in the parental home to save them about £1,000 a month on rent, compared with the national average of £560 a month, and £340 for young adults in Wales.

As well as the financial advantages of paying little or no rent, the possibility of co-residence may offer more benefits to those living near areas with more job opportunities and good public transport – again, cities like London.

Bee Boileau, a research economist at the IFS and co-author of the report, said: “We should not ignore the inequalities that arise [from the hotel of mum and dad].”

Although the difficulty of paying rent was the main driver for co-residence, researchers said the post-Covid surge in the number of young adults with mental and other health issues accounted for some of the increase.

The decline in marriage and parenthood among 24- to 34-year-olds may also play a minor part in the rise in co-residence – although researchers pointed out that this arrangement may itself delay people having babies or tying the knot.

The boomeranger trend is not confined to the UK. The IFS said similar increases had been identified in the US, Australia and Canada. UK rates were higher than those in Nordic countries and “significantly lower” than in southern European countries.

Cultural norms about living with parents into adulthood also explained some big differences in co-residence in the UK, for example in Bangladeshi communities 62% of 24- to 34-year-olds live at home.

Young adults frustrated with the hotel of mum and dad – and parents who may wonder when their children will check out – may be comforted by data which shows that while 43% of 25-year-olds live at home, this falls to 9% for 34-year-olds.

Young men are more likely to live with their parents: 12% compared with 5% of women at the age of 34. Researchers could offer no explanation for this, although the gender differences also existed in other high-income countries.