Girls still leaving home earlier

Dutch girls still leave home at a significantly younger age than boys. Most young women leave when they are around twenty, most men two years later. By the time they have reached thirty, only a few percent of women live with their parents, while ten percent of men are still at home. The age gap between the sexes has been diminishing for some time, though, according to figures in Living together: new facts about relationships and families published by Statistics Netherlands in collaboration with the Netherlands family council.

Young people still living at home by age

Living alone more popular

The respective ages at which boys and girls leave home are revealing opposite trends: boys are leaving slightly earlier, while girls are postponing their departure. This development is connected with the increasing tendency of young people to live alone (i.e. without a partner) when they leave home.

Too early?

Young women often feel they have left home too early. Significantly more girls (36%) than boys (20%) report that they had left too early, usually to get married or live with a partner. This is connected with the fact that girls are on average two years younger than boys when they leave home.

Wim van Hoorn