The box-room generation: Figures reveal average age in Ireland for moving out of family home – and how other EU states compare

The analysis, which was carried out last year, recorded an increase on the average moving-out age from the previous year, which was 26.9.

While people are staying at home longer in Ireland, the average age for leaving home fell across Europe over the same period.

The Irish figures are above the EU average and significantly higher than the Nordic region, where Finns are living independently at the age of 21.4 years.

On average, Irish men move out of home later than women. The average age for men stood at 28.5 in 2023, while women left the parental household a year earlier, at 27.5.

Both percentages are higher than the EU average age for leaving home, which is 26.3 years – down slightly from 2022.

Across the bloc, the highest average age for living at home was recorded in Croatia, with people leaving their parental home at 31.8 years.

The age for flying the nest is also over 30 in Slovakia, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria and Italy.

Finland boasts the lowest average age for people moving out, followed by Sweden and Denmark (21.8 years), while people in Estonia move out of home at 22.8 years.

Eurostat also found that more than one-quarter of young people in the EU aged 15 to 29 lived in overcrowded households in 2023.

However, Ireland had one of the lowest overcrowding rates for young people, at just 4.4pc. Malta had a rate of 3.9pc, while in Cyprus it was 4pc.

The highest overcrowding rates were recorded in Romania, at 49.4pc, and Bulgaria, at 55.3pc.

Around 54.8pc of young people in Latvia also lived in overcrowded households.

The impact of the housing crisis was laid bare in a Eurofound study published earlier this year, which revealed that 40pc of young working people in Ireland still lived at home in 2022.

This was way up on the percentage recorded in 2017, when 27pc of young working people had yet to move out of their parents' home.

In a deeper analysis of age cohorts from the Eurofound study, it found that a fifth of 30- to 34-year-olds in the EU still lived with their parents in 2022.

Around 42pc of those aged 25 to 29 also continued to reside in their parental homes.