Generation locked out: Census reveals marked rise in adults living with their parents

While the number of families recorded in Census 2022 was 59% higher than in 1996, the average number of children per family fell by 26% to 1.34 children.

The latest detailed breakdown of Census 2022 data from the Central Statistics Office delves into data on households, families and childcare in Ireland. It found that, overall, there were 522,486 adults living with their parents on Census night in April 2022. This was a rise of 14% from 2016.

It meant that just over one in every eight adults lived in the same household as their parents. The younger a person is, the more likely they were to be living with their parents. Three in five (61%) of 20- to 24-year-olds lived at home, an increase from 54% in 2011. One in three adults aged 25 to 29 lived at home, also an increase from 24% in 2011.

Overall, 22% of 18- to 50-year-olds lived with their parents. This was a rise from 19% in 2011.

The CSO said: “Almost one-quarter (23%) of all 25- to 34-year-olds lived in the same household as their parents in 2022. In 2011, just 17% of this same age group lived with their parents.

“The largest percentage increase was among adults aged 50 years and older living with their parents; this increased by 26% (+3,796) since 2016 and by 56% (+6,730) since 2011.” 

The age of 24 was the youngest age at which the majority of people were no longer living with their parents. At the age of 28, over one in four (28%) were still living at home. And, there were more men than women still living at home. Adults in South Dublin were the most likely to live with their parents (16%), while Galway city had the lowest proportion (9%).

There was also a large increase in the number of adults living with their parents who were also unpaid carers, up 50% to 25,000 adults. 

Social Democrat housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan said that the figures were “shameful”. 

“Locked out of home ownership and unable to afford Ireland’s exorbitant rents, this generation face the choice of living with their parents indefinitely or emigrating to a country where they can afford to live independently,” he said.

“The generation locked out of housing need a government that will treat the crisis like the emergency that it is. The status quo is failing catastrophically.”

Elsewhere in the statistics, it showed that there almost 220,000 one-parent households, including 186,487 single mothers and 33,509 single fathers. There were 1,853 children who were living in a household with a same-sex couple, up 86% since 2016.

The number of families without children is also on the rise, up 11% since 2016 to 394,052. The average household size fell slightly in Census 2022, down from 2.75 to 2.74.

The number of families in Census 2022 was 59% higher than in 1996, but the average number of children per family fell by 26%https://t.co/SYjM00nCKn#CSOIreland #Ireland #Census #Census2022 #CensusIreland #Population pic.twitter.com/7CYv0WXln4

— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) August 31, 2023

On Census night, there were 425,974 people in Ireland living alone, a rise of 7% on 2016. More than one in four people over the age of 65 lived alone, while 44% of those aged 85 and over lived alone. Dublin had the highest number of people living alone, followed by Co. Cork.

Nearly one in three of the 1.01 million children under the age of 15 were in some form of childcare on Census night 2022. Just over four in 10 were in a crèche or similar facility (42%), while more than one in four were cared for by an unpaid relative or family member (28%), the CSO said.

Children of parents from higher professional socio-economic groups were most likely to be in a creche, while parents in the unskilled or semi-skilled groups were twice as likely to use unpaid relatives or family members for childcare.