Boomerangers, Kippers and Adultescents: 18–34 year-olds who live with their parents in Great Britain
p. 88-100
Texte intégral
1Today in Great Britain more than half of young people aged 18 to 24 live with their parents.1 As for 25 to 35 year-olds, the figure is around 14%. Thus, approximately 6.8 million over-18s live in their parents’ house, and two million of these are over 30. Some have never left home; others left home and then returned to the family dwelling at a later date. In this way, a greater proportion of young people are living with their parents than a generation ago. This phenomenon is having profound economic and social effects within families. Why are so many young people living with their parents in Great Britain and what are the outcomes? In this article we will first describe this current housing trend before examining some of its numerous causes and consequences. We will finish with a few comments on the future.
The situation: home not alone
2Approximately one in four British households contains an adult living in his/her parents’ home (BBC, 2004). Indeed, in the spring of 2006, in England, nearly three-fifths (58%) of young men and two-fifths (39%) of young women aged 20–24 lived with their parents (see Table 1). This represented an increase since 1991 of around 8% for males and 7% for females in their early twenties. For the 25–29 year-old age group, the figures stood at 22% of males and 11% of females, which was slightly more than in 1991 and 1977. As for the 30–34 year-olds, the proportion was 9% for males and 3% for females in 2006–the same as 30 years earlier.
3These raw statistics illustrate two points in particular. First, young men tend to live with their parents more than young women. Second, it is the habits of young people in their early twenties which are changing the most. Male and female offspring in the 20–24 year age group are living with mum and/or dad much more than a generation ago. Altogether, a third of men aged between 20 and 34 now live in the family home, compared with a quarter in 1977–1978.
Table I — Adults living with their parents: by gender and age, England, 1977–2006

Source: Adapted from, ONS, Social Trends 37, 2007 & Social Trends 30, 2000.
4Some of these young people have not moved out at all since reaching adulthood. Others will have left and then returned home. The proportion of young adults who go back to live with their parents, at some point during their adult life, almost doubled from 25% in 1950 to 46% in 2001 (The Future Foundation, 2001). Indeed, one in 10 newly independent young people move out, only to return to the family ‘nest’ up to 4 times before they leave for good (BTopenworld, 2002). A new term was invented in 2002 for these young people who left home only to return to the family home at a later date: ‘Boomerangers’ and its corollary, ‘boomeranging’.
5However, parents are under no legal obligation to financially support their children after they reach the age of 16 (or 19 when they are in full-time further education), unlike in other EU countries, such as Spain or Italy. Furthermore, parents receive no help from the State to cover costs of adult children living with them.2 According to one recent survey, almost 60% of adult children who live with their parents do not pay rent, benefiting thus from free board and lodging. Those that do make a financial contribution, donate on average around £95 a week, well below the market rate for such accommodation (MacIver, 2003).
6Lastly, a certain percentage of young people who live in the family home are actually carers, looking after a sick or elderly parent.3 It should also be borne in mind that whilst some young people living with their parents choose to do so, most are obliged. Let us now see some of the explanations.
The explanations: New Labour, new costs
7There is thus a growing tendency for adult offspring to live in the parental home, particularly in their early twenties – an age when many young people want to be independent and when most parents want less responsibility. There are many inter-related factors that go some way to explaining this phenomenon. These explanations are primarily linked to the increasing costs of contemporary higher education and of accommodation.
8The financial costs of further and higher education have increased mainly due to the end of student grants and the introduction of tuition fees under New Labour. Tuition fees of £1,000 for university students were introduced in 1999 and they were raised to a flat rate of £1,150 per annum in June 2004. These fees represented a significant financial burden for many students, especially those from lower income families. Hence, the average debt of students leaving higher education is currently over £10,000. The figure prior to 1999 was considerably less – around £3,000. The new system of variable tuition fees and student loans which started in September 2006 may lead to further financial problems for graduates, despite universities charging the maximum tuition fees being obliged to fund non-repayable bursaries of at least £300 for students from the poorest backgrounds.4 This is because loans have to be repaid after graduation, at the very time when graduates might be hoping to buy a first property.5
9Furthermore, many more young people are going into higher education than a decade ago; the figure has more than doubled over the past 10 years to over 43%. This is mainly due to New Labour’s target, announced in 1992, to increase the proportion of the 18–30 age bracket accessing higher education to 50% before 2010.6 So more and more young people are being affected by the rising costs of higher education and there is thus a greater demand from students for rented accommodation. An obvious solution is to live at home with one’s parents in order to cut costs.
10Indeed, a growing proportion of higher education students are accommodated in the family home, in particular those from lower income families7 (Unite, 2006: 11). In 1994, 14.5% of undergraduates were known to be living in their parents’ or guardians’ dwelling whilst studying. According to various surveys, the proportion has risen since then to around 23% (Patiniotis, 2003; Unite, 2006: 11). At the same time, the proportion of full-time undergraduates living in (often expensive) halls of residence has fallen from 35% to around 25% in the same period (Ramsden, 2006: 65; Unite 2006: 11).
11The second major factor encouraging young people to stay at home is that there is currently an inadequate amount of affordable housing for young people to buy. Indeed, the country has experienced a decade of almost continuously booming property prices. In 1996, the average cost of a home (all types of dwellings: houses and flats) was £70,626. In 2002, it was £128,265 and in 2006 it was £204,813 (see Table 2), nearly treble the 1996 figure. Soaring house prices mean that it is very difficult to enter the housing market for the first time, whereas a vast majority of young people do aspire to own their own home (Smith, 2005).
Table II — Average house prices (all dwellings), UK, 1996–2006
Year |
Average house price inpounds (£) |
1996 |
70,626 |
Sources: Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), 1996–2006, Survey of Mortgage Lenders.
12The problem is two-fold: first saving up and paying for the original deposit and second paying the subsequent mortgage costs. Indeed, it has become increasingly difficult for potential first-time buyers to save up money for a deposit. National
13Savings and Investments reported in December 2004 that it took four and a half years to save for a 5% deposit. This figure was 21 months more than in 1994 “when house prices began their phenomenal rise”. In addition, graduate jobs are not paying high enough salaries to cover deposit and mortgage costs.8 Thus, rises in house prices have outstripped rises in incomes of potential buyers and so the amount of money that first-time buyers need for mortgage repayments, as a percentage of their monthly salary, is currently at its highest level since 19909 (Palmer, 2006: 16). Mortgage repayments thus amount to 42% of the total take home pay of first-time buyers on an average income. In 1996, the figure represented 18% of first-time buyers’ incomes. Furthermore, the proportion of the cost of an average mortgage has risen considerably in comparison to house prices. At the start of 2005 each loan was worth, on average, 3.21 times the income of the people buying the property. In 1995 the comparable ratio was 2.39.
14Thus, very many people on an average salary cannot afford to borrow enough money to buy an average priced property in many towns and cities. The difficulty in getting onto the housing ladder is reflected in the fact that in 2005 first-time buyers represented 38% of the total number of property buyers, whereas during the 1980s and 1990s first-time home buyers represented around 50% of those people borrowing money to purchase a home.10
15Added to this, the number of cheaper houses being built for those needing subsidised housing has not kept pace with demand; it is currently lower than it was a decade ago. This makes getting on to the housing ladder even more difficult for people on a low income, who are very often young people.
16So the current housing problem, which has emerged over the past 10 years, is four-fold: high property prices, the high cost of a deposit and the subsequent cost of loan repayments, plus a lack of cheaper housing. Hence, many potential first-time buyers find themselves squeezed out of the housing market and so stay with parents instead of becoming property owners. In this way, young people are staying at home once again not through choice but through need.
17This predicament of booming property prices has been exacerbated by other extenuating circumstances which also encourage young people to live with their parents. For example, there is often an unwillingness to rent, as it is thought of as throwing money away, as opposed to the long term investment of taking on a mortgage.11 Another housing related problem is that for young people living in rural areas, leaving home to buy a house (in the countryside) would almost certainly also entail buying and running a car in order to get to their place of study or work (public transport is often unreliable or ineffective). When living at home they can get a lift from their parents or borrow their car. It is often financially impossible for young people to buy both a vehicle and a property and so they have to remain with their families.
18There are thus a number of interlinked contemporary economic factors playing an important role in encouraging adult children to live in the parental home. From a different angle, we can see that there are some social factors at play too.
19People are getting married or are co-habiting (and having children) at a later age than a generation ago.12 Whilst there is a growing trend for young adults to leave the family home prior to living with their future partner/spouse, this is now happening at a later age. Among other things, this may be due either to them saving up to buy a home first, or a desire not to commit to a partnership at too young an age. However, the result is the same: they remain under their parents’ roof. Then later on, breakdowns in relationships (separation and/or divorce) occur at a greater rate and at a younger age than previously. Men and women aged 25 to 29 have the highest divorce rates. Very often, following a split, adult children return to the financial and emotional security of their parents’ dwelling – as ‘boomerangers’ – for a certain amount of time (BTopenworld, 2002).
20Furthermore, in the past, it was common for many young British people to leave home and become independent as soon as possible (much earlier and in greater numbers than in other European countries). Gaining independence was considered as an important part of socialisation. It was not a question of economics. The short-term ‘pain’ of financial hardship was offset by long term ‘gain’ of independence and freedom. This bid for autonomy might be changing since parents tend to afford more independence to their children within the family home now (for example, allowing boyfriends/girlfriends to sleepover). Similarly, today many parents and children have closer relationships than their forefathers. The traditional generation gap has closed somewhat and so a more open-minded lifestyle being possible within the parental home means that more young people may feel more comfortable living with their ‘old folks’.
21Lastly, a factor that has not really evolved over the years is that some young adults seem to enjoy the creature comforts of living with parents who look after them materially and/or financially. They simply do not want to leave the comfortable cocoon of the family home and all its benefits. Any downside of such mollycoddling and lack of independence is considered to be worth putting up with. These adult children are caught in a twilight zone between adolescence and adulthood, hence the terms: ‘adultescents’, ‘adulescents’, ‘kidults’ and ‘Peter Panners’. Some of these young people, who live in a generational limbo, might be too frightened to move out and become autonomous, finding that the longer one stays in the protective family home, the harder it is to leave. Others simply might be too lazy to move on. Having the food shopping, washing and washing up done by one’s parents might appeal more to young men… who tend to live more often and longer in the family home (see Table 1).
22Hence there is a range of socio-economic factors to explain why more young adults are remaining in the family home. A few of them have existed for many years, but a vast majority of them have appeared since 1997, including the increased costs of higher education and house buying and closer inter-generational relationships.
The results: where has my inheritance gone?
23The higher costs of housing and higher education over the past decade with the resulting phenomena of ‘boomerangers’ and ‘adulescents’, etc. are having a serious impact on the economic and social well-being of both the parties involved. Let us start by looking at the effects on the young.
24First, some young people from poorer backgrounds have been put off going on to higher and further education for fear of getting into debt. Despite the marked increase in the number of students continuing with their studies after secondary school, the proportion of those from a low income background has hardly gone up (UCAS, 2005, 2007). It has remained stable at around 25% of students, the newer students being drawn mainly from the middle class despite attempts by the government to widen participation13 (Newby, 2005). Furthermore, young adults from lower socio-economic backgrounds may be more likely (disproportionately so) to study locally, close to the family home, in order to save money. Moreover, young people from rural areas are being forced either to move into urban areas, leaving the countryside altogether, or to continue living with their parents (Rugg, 1999a). Apart from living with parents, more young people are living in shared accommodation, either via joint ownership or renting. Indeed, between 1975 and 2003, the proportion of young people renting went from 28% to 47% for under 25 year-olds and from 15% to 26% for those aged 25–29 (Bosanquet, 2005: 17).
Table III — Home owner occupiers aged 18 to 24, 1994–2005, percentage
Year |
18–24 |
25–29 |
30–34 |
1984 |
35 |
60 |
66 |
Source: Nationwide building society, 2006 and National Centre for Social Research, 2004.
25Young adults from low income backgrounds are also more likely to be dissuaded from entering the housing ladder due to financial constraints. More generally, the proportion of young adults who are homeowners has decreased dramatically over the past decade. Only 20% of 20–24 year olds were home owners in 2005, compared to 34% in 1994, (Nationwide, 2006: 1), (see Table III). Similarly, the rising costs of buying a home means that the average age of first-time buyers is now 34 years, higher than a decade ago (Council of Mortgage Lenders, 2005: 19), (see Table IV). A further consequence is that as young people are buying later on in their lives than before, they are thus accumulating less equity on their homes during their lifetimes.
26Due to the financial difficulties incurred by young people leaving home and buying a home, 40% of first-time buyers (although not all are young) rely on financial help from their parents when buying their new home (Bradford & Bingley, 2006; CML, 2007). Half of the parents aiding their children financially do so by donating money towards the deposit, whilst a smaller proportion, 17%, contribute to their offspring’s monthly mortgage repayments (MacIver, 2003).
Table IV — Age of first-time home buyers, UK, 1986–2003, (in thousands)
Age group |
1986–1990 |
1991–1995 |
1996–2000 |
2001–2003 |
18–24 |
169 |
114 |
93 |
75 |
Source: ONS, General Household Survey, 1975–2006.
27However, few parents have anticipated these substantial financial contributions to buying a house for their offspring. Thus many have not made adequate provisions. In order to cover the cost of helping out their children financially, many parents are obliged to cash in savings, or to continue working (not taking early retirement), or to take on extra jobs. Other parents are using the equity on their own properties by taking out top-up mortgages, or by re-mortgaging their home, to finance the large cash deposits required by their children. Consequently, one in seven parents with adult children have re-mortgaged or taken out a loan in an attempt to help their children buy a property. Similarly, lump sums are increasingly being withdrawn from savings accounts. In this way, a lot of re-mortgaging and equity withdrawal is being done by parents with adult children to finance house buying.14
28This inevitably results in an erosion of parents’ savings. It may use up money they have put aside for their own care later on (paying for health care or a nursing home),15 or it may use up their children’s future inheritance.16 Indeed, savings are at record low levels and this leads to a lack of a safety net should misfortune occur. Some parents are even neglecting life insurance because finances are stretched. The term ‘Kippers’ –‘Kids In Parents’ Pockets, Eroding Retirement Savings’–was first coined by the insurance and financial services company the Prudential plc in November 2003 to describe the phenomenon.17 Furthermore, some parents of adult children needing help also care for their own elderly parents; thus there has been a sharp increase recently in vertical households with three or four generations living under the same roof.
29There is also more poverty among young homeowners who fall into a downward spiral of impossible loan repayments and credit card debt. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Burrows, 2003), by far the largest proportion of people living in poverty are in fact homeowners; many of them are first-time buyers. Homeowners are at their greatest risk of falling into poverty during their first few years of ownership, normally between the ages of 25 and 34. Indeed, in 2004, in the 20–29 age-group, there were 4,000 cases of bankruptcy, up by 65% on the previous year (BBC 2, 2004). Hence there is a rising number of repossessions of properties; the number of court orders for repossessions doubled between 2003 and 2006.
30From a more social point of view, for young adults who do not wish to move away from the parental home to study or work, the learning experience of becoming independent is being lost. This can have a detrimental impact on socialisation and personal development. For example, young people living at home may be less involved in student life (associations and clubs), and may find it more difficult to make university friends. They might also meet a less wide range of people. Finally, they may partake less in risky behaviour due to the constraints of living in the parental home.
31In addition, young people are remaining dependent on their parents for a longer period, leading to the infantilisation of young adults. Young people who live with their parents tend not to grow up and become psychologically independent until a later age hence the terms ‘adultescents’, ‘adulescents’, ‘kidults’ and ‘Peter Panners’ previously mentioned. This means some adults experience difficulties in making decisions, as well as acting independently and are thus becoming mature later on (Rugg, 1999b). This could harm their employability after graduation (Rugg, 2004).
32Lastly, it should not be overlooked that not all parents continue to accommodate adult children under their roof willingly, or welcome them back with open arms. So there might be some friction between the generations and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence as regards tensions within families due to ‘parasite singles’ or ‘SLOPS’ –‘Singles Living Off Parents’, especially due to children not ‘paying their way’ or not giving a firm departure date.
33On a more positive note, young adults who live with their families whilst in higher education are probably in better mental health – they tend to eat better, sleep better and get more psychological support from their families.
34The eighteenth and nineteenth century witnessed the discovery of childhood; the twentieth century saw the discovery of the teenager. The start of the 21st century is seeing the extension going further with the birth of the ‘adultescents’, ‘adulescents’, ‘kidults’ and ‘Peter Panners’ caught between adolescence and adulthood in a state of perpetual on-going dependent youth. We are witnessing the gradual erosion of the lines between childhood-adolescence-adulthood with adolescence being extended well into twenties and even thirties.
35This evolution is reflected in the marked increase in the number of adult children living with their parents well into their twenties. Many of these are doing so not through choice, but through financial constraints, such as higher education tuition fees, a need to clear student debts, attempts to save up for a deposit on a flat or house, paying a mortgage, or relationship problems. As a result, home comforts, disposable income, savings, wealth transference (inheritance) and independence are eroded, whilst financial pressure, debt and social constraints are increased for both adult children and their parents. A decrease in home ownership and its corollary, an increase in adult children living with their parents, is thus leading both generations towards long-term bleak financial futures.
36In June 2007, ten years after Tony Blair was first elected Prime Minister, this unfavourable context looked set to continue with the extended period of dependency set to be prolonged even further. Student tuition fees and loans were not likely to go away, all the more so, because both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party (since David Cameron became leader in December 2005) supported the need for tuition fees. As for the housing boom bubble, it did not look set to burst.
37What did the government need to do at that time in order to ‘allow’ more young people to leave the parental home? First, the government clearly needed to rethink tuition fees, especially for students from low income backgrounds. Second, more housing obviously needed to be built,18 in particular, cheaper flats and houses for first-time house buyers, including one bedroom19 and social housing.20 More imaginative housing schemes were needed, too,21 as well as solutions to local and regional imbalances as regards the housing stock.
38On coming to power on 27 June 2007, Gordon Brown announced that housing would be at the heart of his parliamentary programme, with 3 million new homes to be built by 2020. He laid particular emphasis on “affordable housing”. The following week, on 5 July 2007, John Denham, Secretary of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, announced in the House of Commons two major changes to be introduced in September 2008 in order to boost the numbers of higher education students from low income backgrounds. On the one hand, it will be possible for all graduates to benefit for up to five years from a “repayment holiday” on paying back government student loans following graduation, in order to help them when “buying a first home or starting a family”. On the other hand, approximately 50,000 more undergraduates will become eligible for a full non-repayable maintenance grant as the threshold of family gains are increased from £18,000 to £25,000 a year (Hansard, 5 July 2007).22 The outlook has changed and in the long term probably fewer 18–30 year olds will be living with their parents. It will be particularly interesting to observe the impact these future changes may have on the proportion of young adults from lower economic backgrounds remaining under the family roof and the length of time they do so.
39Finally, within the context of the erosion of the traditional family structure, it could be considered as a positive social trend that some families are staying together for longer, albeit through financial constraints rather than through choice and strong family ties which seems to be more the case in Mediterranean Europe.
Bibliographie
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Notes de bas de page
1 The figure for France and Germany is very similar around 60%, compared with 90% in Spain and Italy.
2 Child Benefit (one of the few non means-tested benefits in Great Britain) stops when the child reaches 16 or 19 when in full-time education.
3 According to Age Concern, around 10% of adults (of all ages) living with their parents are carers, but they are not all young adults.
4 Since September 2006 tuition fees for full-time undergraduates have been variable, i.e. universities are able to set the level of the fees themselves, from zero to an upper limit of £3,000. Students no longer have to pay the tuition fees each year ‘upfront’. Instead, fees are covered by a loan, repayable by graduates once their income exceeds the threshold of £15,000 per annum, with repayments at a minimum of 9% of all earnings over that figure per year, with an inflation-linked interest rate.
5 The NUS (National Union of Students) predicts that student debt will inevitably increase.
6 This was one of a set of education performance targets established by Estelle Morris, then Education Secretary, as part of an “investment for reform” deal with the Treasury. In 1960, less than 6% of school leavers went to a university.
7 “Students living with their parents are more likely to be of C2, D or E social class (40%) i.e. working class, an ethnic minority (41%) or attending a new university (29%). They are also more likely to have either dropped out or seriously considered dropping out of university previously (30%).”
8 According to the NatWest (2003), in 2002, the average starting salary for graduates was £13,422.
9 According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2006), a third of all working households with occupants under 40 cannot afford to buy property. Half of all working households in the South of England (which has the highest house prices in the United Kingdom) cannot afford to buy a property, even at the cheapest end of the market.
10 The Nationwide Building Society (2006) estimated that 20% of first-time buyers in 2005 were older people returning to the housing market after a period in rented accommodation.
11 The proportion of people living in rented accommodation is much lower in Great Britain than in other European countries. Around 11% of Britons live in privately rented housing and 12% in council housing (ONS, 2006: 2).
12 The average age for getting married for the first time is currently 31.7 for men, 29.5 for women (ONS, 2007).
13 Sir Howard Newby is the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The Government did not set a target for the proportion of students from low income backgrounds when stating it wanted to increase higher and further education participation to 50% of 18–30 year-olds by 2010 (see above). In 2005–2006, 12.4% of students were from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds.
14 A guarantor mortgage is a possibility. The lender agrees to advance more money than usual since a relative has agreed to be liable legally to take on the mortgage if repayments are not met by the homeowner.
15 Having money available to pay for a care home is all the more important since life expectancy is still increasing.
16 The charity Age Concern has expressed particularly worries about inheritances being used up.
17 As opposed to SKI, short for ‘Spending Kids’ Inheritance’. According to recent research, many older parents are spending their money on new cars, hobbies, travel, etc. and are not leaving much for their children when they die.
18 In 2004 the government’s Barker review recommended a substantial increase to new house building to curb ever-increasing house price inflation. At the end of Tony Blair’s tenure, 168,000 houses were being erected each year.
19 Despite more people living with parents, there are more and more singletons–people living alone–and it is now the fastest growing demographic group.
20 Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Right-To-Buy’ programme (introduced by the 1980 Housing Act) took some 1.7 million homes out of the social housing pool up until 1997. They have never been subsequently replaced, thus substantially reducing council housing stock.
21 In mid-2007, a government think-tank (National Housing and Planning Advice Unit), set up to give policy-makers advice on housing policy, said that the average British house costs the equivalent of 7 times the average salary. It estimates that prices could increase to the equivalent of 10 times the average salary by 2026 depending on the number of houses built each year over the next decade which is currently predicted at 190,000 each year.
22 John Denham said: “hard-working families on modest incomes have concerns about the affordability of university study”.
Notes de fin
* All internet pages consulted on 1 July 2007.
Auteur
CREC, Université Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle
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2004
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