Why young adults living at home in Europe isn’t just about the rent

Somewhere outside Milan, a 29-year-old graphic designer is reheating leftovers in the same kitchen she did her homework in as a teen. Her LinkedIn says she’s freelancing full-time. Her bank account tells a different story. In Lisbon, a 32-year-old app developer takes a video call from his bedroom—one wall still covered in soccer posters. He jokes about being in a “pause era,” but he’s not laughing when the call ends. And in Paris, a 27-year-old administrative assistant swipes through apartments on an app, eyes glazing over as she watches prices climb past her entire monthly salary.

Across Europe, more young adults are staying in their childhood homes—not temporarily, not in crisis mode, but for years. And they’re not alone. According to Eurostat, over half of 25- to 29-year-olds in the European Union still live with their parents. In countries like Italy, Croatia, and Slovakia, the numbers inch past 70%. Even in the UK and France, where moving out by your early twenties was once a cultural expectation, the shift is visible and growing.

On the surface, the reasons are economic: rising rents, inflation, insecure work. But scratch just beneath and a deeper story unfolds—one that reveals a generational redefinition of adulthood, success, and what it means to grow up when the traditional markers no longer apply.

For generations raised on the promise of independence, this isn’t just about housing. It’s about timelines falling apart. It’s about identity caught in limbo. It’s about performing adulthood in a system that keeps moving the finish line.

In Western Europe, the “move out at 18” narrative was part of a broader myth of linear success. Study hard. Get a degree. Land a job. Rent a flat. Fall in love. Progress, framed as a staircase—each step taken in proper order, by the proper age. For Southern and Eastern Europe, the norm was different. Multigenerational households weren’t a last resort. They were tradition. Families living together, pooling resources, building resilience across time. But now the lines are blurring. The cultural divide is fading. Because for everyone—North or South, tradition or independence—the economics are collapsing in on themselves.

Rents in major cities have surged, often exceeding 50% of median monthly salaries. Even with full-time jobs, many young adults can’t qualify for leases without parental co-signers. Those lucky enough to land steady work often find themselves in precarious industries—creative, freelance, contract-based—where monthly income varies wildly. And for others, work exists in the gray zones of hustle: underpaid internships, part-time shifts, digital gigs that look impressive on social media but barely cover transport.

It’s tempting to frame this as regression, to say young adults are “failing to launch.” But that language reveals more about outdated expectations than lived realities. Because what we’re actually seeing isn’t failure—it’s forced adaptation.

Living at home no longer signals immaturity. It signals pragmatism. Why spend 70% of your paycheck on a single-bedroom flat when it means sacrificing food security, healthcare, and any semblance of mental peace? Why perform independence for landlords, society, and strangers when the cost is burnout, debt, and fragility?

The old markers of adulthood—leaving home, owning property, starting a family—are increasingly out of reach. So young adults are carving new paths, often in silence, often without validation. They are contributing to household bills, caring for aging parents, launching careers from bedrooms filled with childhood relics. Their independence is emotional, intellectual, even spiritual. But it is rarely spatial.

This shift has created its own paradox. Social media still celebrates the moved-out, the minimalist lofts, the solo coffee routines, the curated adulthood aesthetic. But reality looks different. Reality is a software engineer sharing a bunk bed with her younger brother. Reality is a marketing assistant timing her Zoom calls around her dad’s TV volume. Reality is a generation building adult lives in spaces designed for teenagers.

And yet, there is softness here. Beneath the economic constraints is something else: community, interdependence, continuity. In some cases, living at home has allowed people to save, recover from burnout, or simply breathe without the crushing weight of rent. It has made space for new rituals—shared meals, unexpected companionship, conversations with parents that never happened when everyone was rushing out the door.

But that doesn’t make it easy.

Living at home as an adult is emotionally complicated. There’s guilt—about being a burden, about not contributing more, about feeling stuck. There’s shame—especially when peers are moving out, getting married, buying flats. There’s tension—between who you are now and who your parents still see you as. And there’s grief—quiet, unspoken—for the version of life you imagined but can’t afford.

These feelings rarely surface in polite conversation. They hover instead in group chats, in therapist’s offices, in late-night Google searches. How old is too old to live at home? Am I the only one left? Is something wrong with me?

But the statistics are clear. No, you’re not the only one. Yes, something is wrong—but not with you.

The problem lies in a system that demands adult performance while withholding adult infrastructure. It lies in housing markets that price out entry-level workers. In cities that prioritize short-term rentals over local renters. In economies where full-time work no longer guarantees stability. And in cultural scripts that haven’t evolved to match economic reality.

Still, the shame persists. Because the dream persists. Because moving out still signals freedom, success, and competence—even if it also signals financial strain and emotional isolation. Because we still equate physical space with personal growth. Because we still think autonomy must look a certain way.

But perhaps it’s time to rewrite that script.

Autonomy can look like staying in your childhood home while paying off debt. It can look like sleeping in your old twin bed while building your savings. It can look like setting boundaries with your parents so your emotional independence grows, even if your physical address doesn’t change.

What’s changing now is not just behavior—but the conversation around it.

More young adults are speaking openly about staying at home. They are rejecting shame. They are forming community online. They are asking bigger questions: What does it mean to be independent? What kind of adulthood are we building if it’s only achievable through burnout?

And they are reminding us that living at home doesn’t mean standing still. Many are pursuing advanced degrees, launching businesses, building families of choice. They are traveling, creating, evolving—just on different timelines, in different conditions, under different roofs.

This isn’t a pause. It’s a pivot.

And it forces a reckoning—not just with rent prices and employment contracts, but with values. If adulthood is about accountability, contribution, and growth—many are already living it, even if their mailing address hasn’t changed.

So maybe the next time someone says they still live at home, we don’t offer pity. Maybe we ask what they’re building. Maybe we listen. Maybe we learn.

Because behind that answer is often a story of resilience, adaptation, and quiet defiance. A story of someone trying to make adulthood work in a world that keeps moving the goalposts. A story that’s far more common than we think.

And maybe—just maybe—it’s time to stop treating that story like a secret. Europe’s young adults are not lazy. They are not directionless. They are not waiting for life to start. They are living it—differently, imperfectly, resourcefully.

They are staying put. For now. Not because they’ve given up—but because they are learning how to move forward without losing themselves in the process. That isn’t failure. That’s strategy. And maybe, in the long view, it’s exactly the kind of adulthood this world needs more of.