FED: Young people refuse to leave home, get married: ABS
By Cathy Alexander29 Jan 2009 3:33 PM
Subject: FED: Young people refuse to leave home, get married: ABS FED: Young people refuse to leave home, get married: ABS
CANBERRA, Jan 29 AAP - Parents, brace yourselves - young adults just don't want to move out of home any more.
The allure of free rent and laundry services is proving too much for Australia's 20-somethings, who are much more likely to live at home now than 20 years ago.
The number of people in their late 20s who still live with the parents has surged 50 per cent since the 1980s, according to fresh analysis of the 2006 Census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
In all, almost a third of people in their 20s still live at home.
And parents shouldn't get too comfortable when their kids do finally move out - there's every chance they will move back in again.
Of those aged in their late 20s who still lived with their parents, more than half had tried moving out and didn't like it.
Young people are choosing to stay home for financial reasons, because they are more likely to be studying, and because they have put off finding a partner and having babies.
Marriage is out of fashion with the young, it seems.
The proportion of people aged under 35 who have tied the knot has plummeted from 75 per cent to less than half since the 1980s.
The ABS also looked at trends in children living in same-sex households, and found gay women were much more likely to have children than gay men.
Almost 90 per cent of children living in same-sex households lived with a gay female couple.
The ABS analysis found the typical Australian household is changing.
Fewer people live in household comprising a couple and children, and more people live without children, or by themselves.
AAP ca/rl/srp/de =0A
FED: Young people refuse to leave home, get married: ABS