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Home Truths: Single Adults Living with their Parents
March, 2024
Home Truths author, Sophie Johnston.
Our third Home Truths paper examines the upward trend in younger single adults living with parents, their lack of alternative independent housing and their risk of homelessness. These factors are examined in the context of new presentations in emergency accommodation stemming from relationship breakdown with a parent and the over-representation of younger adults in emergency accommodation.
Almost one in every ten (9.3%) single adults new to emergency accommodation here in the Southwest are homeless due to a relationship breakdown with a parent, according to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage’s Performance Report for Quarter 4, 2023.
Census 2022 finds that almost one-quarter (23%) of 25-34-year-olds were living with their parents in 2022, up from 17% in 2011; rising to one third of 25-29-year-olds compared to less than a quarter eleven years earlier.
25–44-year-olds represent almost two in every five (38%) adults in the Southwest but account for well over half (58%) of adults in the region’s emergency accommodation, making younger adults most at risk of homelessness.
According to Census 2022, among 25–29-year-olds living with their parents, over three in every four (78%) are in full-time employment.
A CSO Pulse survey, Life at Home indicates that finances play a part in the reasons for young adults remaining at home.
"Landlord came to me said ‘your contract’s up’. It was hard to find somewhere. Nobody wants to take HAP. My mother said I could move home, so I said grand. But it just went downhill from there. I was 30 / 31. Fighting with my family. It was getting worse and worse and worse. Things just fell apart after that. I was out on the streets for one night. Ended up in here (Cork Simon emergency shelter). I’d never been in the homeless services before – I’ve worked for myself all my life. These kinda things, they soul destroy ya, the really do."
– Brendan.
- Almost one in ten (9.3%) single adults new to emergency accommodation in the Southwest are homeless due to a relationship breakdown with a parent.
- More than two in five (43%) came from the private rented sector.
- One third of 25–29 year-olds were living with their parents in 2022, compared to less than a quarter (24%) in 2011; almost one-quarter (23%) of 25–34 year-olds were living with their parents in 2022, up from 17% in 2011.
- While 25–44-year-olds represent 38% of the adult population in the Southwest, they are over-represented in emergency accommodation, accounting for 58% of the adult population in homeless emergency accommodation in the Southwest.
- The majority of adults over 20 years of age and living with their parents are in employment. 78% of 25–29 year-olds living with parents are in employment.
- 94% of CSO Pulse Survey ‘Life at Home’ respondents, living with parents and in full-time employment, said they would prefer to live independently, while 84% said finances influenced their reason for remaining at home.
- Among 25–29 year-olds, the headship rate (the percentage of the population that list themselves as ‘head of the household’ in the Census) fell to just over one quarter (26%) in 2022, compared to just over one third (34%) in 2011. This fall in headship is consistent with the increase in individuals in this age group living with parents.
- The proportion of adults qualified for and awaiting social housing support, and living with parents while they wait, has doubled in less than a decade in Cork, from 12% in 2013 to 24% in 2022.
- Among 25–29-year-old ‘heads of households’ in Cork, 20% are owner-occupiers, 66% are in private rented accommodation and 9% are in social rented accommodation according to Census 2022. (This compares to Census 2011 when 25% owned their home, 62% were in private rented and 11% were in social rented accommodation).
- Rates of social rental accommodation increased across all groups from 2011 to 2016 in Cork, but decreased among 25–34 year-olds from 2016 to 2022, while they continued to increase among all other age groups.
“I left the family home just before Christmas. I’m 32. Me and my mum, we had a fallout. I’d been in the family home since God knows how long, but I was tossing and turning with social services and social workers and stuff like that, so that kinda played a big factor in my life really. There was no options there for me to get private renting, so I stayed at home. That was the only place I could think of – stick at home. And then when my son was born, I thought that would be a bit of a game changer, but two families kinda like collided and it didn’t end up well for me at all. I was just then told, you have to go, she has to go. It got too much for my mum. There was no other alternative. And so, here I am.”
– Martin.
