More than 500,000 adults live with their parents, latest census results show

There are more than 520,000 adults living with their parents in Ireland, the latest results from Census 2022 shows.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) report on households, families and childcare, published on Thursday, draws on last year’s census and finds 522,486 adults were living with their parents in April 2022. This was 63,612 more than in 2016, an increase of 14 per cent, and 83,008 – or 19 per cent – more than in 2011.

While the number of adults, aged 18 and over, still living at home increased by 14 per cent since 2016, the proportion has remained the same, at 13 per cent.

Adults in south Dublin were the most likely to live with their parents, at 16 per cent, while Galway city had the lowest proportion at 9 per cent.

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Within these data however, significant variations were found in different age cohorts. Almost one-quarter of all 25-34 year olds lived in the same household as their parents in 2022, compared with 17 per cent in In 2011.

Among 28 year olds, 28 per cent were living with their parents. About 20,000 people aged 50 or older were living with one or other of their parents.

Of those adults leaving home, they are doing so at an older age. Last year, 24 was the youngest age at which the majority of people were not living with their parents – up from 23 in 2011.

A significant proportion appear to be staying at home as unpaid carers to their parents. In 2022, nearly 25,000 adults living with their parents were caring for them – representing 5 per cent of all people aged 18 years and over living with their parents and a 50 per cent increase since 2016.

Two-fifths of these were aged over 40 years, with the proportion of adults living with their parents also being unpaid carers rising with age.

More than half of adults living with their parents were working, while just 4 per cent of women and 8 per cent of men at home were unemployed, having lost or given up their previous jobs. Of those, just under 15,000 (46 per cent) were short-term unemployed while 54 per cent were long-term unemployed.

The largest percentage increase was among adults aged 50 years and older living with their parents – by 26 per cent (+3,796) since 2016 and by 56 per cent (+6,730) since 2011. These were the largest percentage increases of any age group.

In all three most recent censuses, there were more adult males than women living with their parents, though the proportion fell last year. In 2022, 57 per cent of adults living with their parents were men, compared with 59 per cent in both 2016 and 2011.

Similar to Census 2016, a total of 61 per cent of adults living with their parents were living with a married couple. A further 21 per cent were living in a one-parent mother household, followed by 5 per cent living with a married couple with children and other people.

A total of 8 per cent of people in private households lived alone, including 44 per cent of those aged 85 years and over.

[ ‘You leave all your friends behind. You leave your independence behind’: Ireland’s adults still living with their parents ]

Social Democrats housing spokesman Cian O’Callaghan said the increase would have knock-on effects on society.

“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.

“Being stuck in a childhood bedroom can have profoundly negative impacts on mental health, self-esteem and the ability to form and maintain relationships. The failure to provide enough affordable housing has left a generation unable to make their own start in life,” he said.

Mr O’Callaghan said countries that provided “significant levels of affordable housing” did not have adults still living at home with their parents. “In Denmark, 25- to 29-year-olds are 15 times less likely to be still living with their parents than those in Ireland.

“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.”