When's it Time to Live on Your Own?

[canyonwalker]

It was in the news Friday that a mother in Italy won a court order to evict her two sons, age 40 and 42, from her house. She complained they were "parasites" who contributed nothing, either in money or time, to the upkeep of the house. The men maintained that Italian law requires parents to support children as long as necessary. A judge agreed that there is a reasonable limit. Example news coverage: CNN article, 27 Oct 2023.

What's interesting to me in the article cited above is a mention of EU data showing that, on average, Italians move out of their parents' home at age of 30. Wow. Even compared the US, with the narrative of the "boomerang" generation of young adults, that's late. Age 30 is not even the highest age of dependency in the EU; Croatia average is 33.4 years. It's also not the lowest. In Finland, Sweden, and Denmark young adults move out on their own at 21 on average.

This got me wondering, what is the average age of adults moving out of their parents' house in the US? Hard numbers are hard to find. One article I found cited a government study from 1997. The US Census only breaks it down by age groups, the youngest being 18-24 year olds. Census data shows 55% of 18-24 year olds have moved out. Thus the average (median) age of independent living is younger than 24. Maybe it's... 22?

I moved out at age 21, after college graduation and a summer at home working a short professional job before attending graduate school. When I left for grad school it was more or less a permanent move. I mean, I moved 3 times in 3 years after that, but that was when my mindset shifted from "I go home for summers and breaks" to "Home is now where I live, and maybe a few times a year I visit my parents."

My three sisters all moved out around age 22-23. They all married college sweethearts not long after graduating. There's a lot more impetus to move out when you're starting your own family. One sister actually moved out of our parents' house at age 19 over their refusal to acknowledge a health concern. After getting engaged she moved in with her fiancé at his parents' house, and the two of them lived there for a year or two after college graduation.

Comments

[kjn]

I think a big factor here is the setup of higher education. The school system here (and the Finnish and I assume the Danish systems are rather similar) is rather different from the American college system. You usually end secondary school at age 18–19, at which point you might work a bit, do your military service if you were my age, and so on. But once you started higher education, a lot of people moved out because the higher education was in another city.

So I think you can look at the breakpoints where people tend to move out: becoming engaged/married; starting a family; starting an education; getting a job. It's not that Scandinavians get married earlier or get kids earlier, it's probably because the education system is tailored towards moving out.

[canyonwalker]

I'm not sure the higher education track you describe is that different from the US. Students who pursue a 4-year degree here often do it at a university far from home. For example, I attended a school 300+ miles from my parents' home. Although I physically moved to dorms and apartments at/near the university I didn't consider it "moving out" because I still went home for breaks and remained slightly financially dependent on my parents. That changed a few months after graduation, as I entered graduate school at age 21.

[some_other_dave]

I also moved out at 21. Just barely 21, mind you, as I was 20 when I graduated from college. Mom had moved while I was in school, so instead of going back to Illinois I went to California. A few months after that, I moved to a beach house in Soquel (with help from my folks) to keep out of my step-father's hair. That only lasted a couple of months, because I got my first real job and moved up to Silicon Valley.