Fifty years ago, the average 24-year-old would have been married, living with their partner, and probably already a parent. Census data out last week shows that today they’re probably still living with their parents.
Welcome to the modern phenomenon dubbed “stretched adolescence”. It’s a term that hints at baby boomers unable to quite get their twentysomethings to leave the parental home. But this is to confer a ludicrous degree of agency on the zoomer generation. They are not choosing a Peter Pan lifestyle: the straitjacket is imposed on them by harsh economic realities. Who really wants to live with their parents into their late 20s, struggling to save a deposit to rent, let alone buy?
