After five years of the global economic crisis, the chickens are coming home to roost. Quite literally. The European Union agency Eurofound has just released data showing that almost half of Europe?s young adults are living with their parents. The new data is the result of one of the most comprehensive social surveys done, embracing 28 European countries. The data showed that the percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 30 years, who were living with their parents, had risen to 48%, or 36.7 million young adults.
The data underscores the predicament of ?Generation Y??who are better educated than their forebears, but condemned nonetheless to dimmer prospects than their parents? generation. The growing phenomenon of adults stuck living in their childhood bedrooms has, moreover, raised concerns about social and demographic trends in an ageing continent. This is even more complicated if the older ones are married and have children. Clearly, the levels of economic hardship and unemployment have surged during the five years of the economic crisis.
Moreover, the Eurofound data shows that the phenomenon is not exclusive to the debt-laden Mediterranean rim and that there has been a rise in the number of stay-at-home 20-somethings in rich countries such as Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium and Austria as well.
In Italy, nearly four-fifths (79%) of young adults were living with their parents. As one of the people behind the report, Anna Ludwinek, said: ?The situation of the youth has really fundamentally changed. And it looks different from the situation of their parents. It?s not only the world of work that has changed, but society is changing too. So the transitions are becoming much more unpredictable; people do not have a job for life or live in one place for life.? She added that multi-generational households have very low life satisfaction and a very high level of deprivation and perceived social exclusion. ?If you are 30 and are still living with your parents and, you have your own family, it is really difficult to start an independent life.?
That?s a far cry from when the phrase Generation Y was coined, or the alternative one, Millenials, those born roughly between 1985 and 2000. Hailed as a generation with unlimited prospects, they are now the first generation in the modern era to face an uncertain future. Indeed, a variety of names have emerged in different European countries post-2008 to designate young people with limited employment and career prospects. In Greece, they were called ?The Generation of 700 euros?, forced to take jobs unrelated to their educational backgrounds at the minimum allowable base wage of 700 euros. In Spain, they?re referred to as ?the mileurista? (for 1,000 euros). In France, they are called ?The Precarious Generation? and in Italy, ?Generazione 1,000 euro? (the generation of 1,000 euros), also connected to the minimum wage. In fact, the Eurofound study found that even among those young adults who had a job, the rise in the number of adults living with parents was 34%.
A similar study in the UK and the US had shown how much pressure the youngest generation is under, a historically unusual situation. Peter Matjasic, president of the European Youth Forum, said that Europe?s youth were still ?in the full force of the storm? despite talks of a recovery. ?This report makes worrying reading because it provides more evidence that at the time that young people should be becoming autonomous adults making their own way in the world, they are forced to continue to live at home with their parents for much longer than before, and this is now becoming the norm in many countries where it was not common practice before.?
Family units in which three generations live under one roof ?are more likely to experience serious deprivation?, says the report. There?s also the other downside of the coin: young married adults are putting off having children, leading to falling birth rates and an ageing population. For Europe, these are worrying times.