The average age at which Irish people leave the family home continues to rise. The latest statistic from Eurostat show that the average age was 27.9 in 2021 compared to 26.3 in 2018. The EU average is now 26.5 years.
The average age for males flying the nest is slightly higher than for females, but the most significant underlying trend is that it reflects the increasing difficulties facing young people trying to find their own place to buy or to rent.
The most dramatic indication of this is that the chances of a person aged 30 now owning their own home is half that of someone who reached that age in the 1990s when more than 60% of people aged 30 owned their own home. That is a reflection of both the failure of housing construction to meet demand, and of house prices.
Poverty, income inequality and living standards in ireland (esri.ie)
This, in turn leads, to a growing dependence on rented accommodation which has also become prohibitively expensive even for people on reasonably good incomes. This is especially true where two people may wish to stary a family and require larger and more suitable units than comprise the bulk of new builds. People in employment are also highly unlikely to be able to access either local authority housing, nor to qualify for any of the housing assistance schemes or payments.
In a situation where the state is actively helping people who do not work – a significant number of them who have migrated to Ireland – to access “social housing,” the pressures on younger working people are greatly increased. ESRI data from immediately prior to the Covid crisis starkly illustrate the dependence which younger people have on private rental accommodation.
Future Trends in Housing Tenure and the Adequacy of Retirement Income (esri.ie)
Where people do privately rent, the age at which people spend the biggest proportion of their disposable income on rent is almost exactly the same as the average age at which people move out of the family home. Rents in Dublin are now over 85% higher than they were in 2011.
Poverty, income inequality and living standards in ireland (esri.ie)
The trend in housing tenure has also meant of course a steady decline in the overall rate of private home ownership which will fall even more sharply given the current composition of the housing market. Which in turn will mean that as people are entering the housing market at a later stage, or dependent on private rental accommodation even in their later years, that this will mean that more older people will be devoting a much greater share of their income to accommodation than has traditionally been the case in Ireland. It will also mean that the proportion of people who are in private rental accommodation will comprise a steadily growing number of households across all age cohorts.
