Cyprus Mail 12 August 2021 - by Jonathan Shkurko
Cyprus is close to the EU average as concerns the age at which young people leave the parental household, a Eurostat survey published on Thursday revealed.
The survey marks “International Youth Day”, an awareness day established by the United Nations in 2000 and observed annually.
In 2020, across the EU, young people left their parental household on average at the age of 26.4 years. The survey also revealed that males on average leave their home at the age of 27.4 years, while females at 25.4 years.
Cyprus’ stats reflect almost perfectly the EU average, even after registering a 0.3 year’s decline since 2019. Like in the rest of the EU, Cypriot women leave their homes earlier than men.
Specifically, the average for Cyprus was 26.8 years (men 27.4 and women 26.2).
Sweden, with 17.5 years, recorded the lowest average age of young people leaving their parental home, with Croatia (32.4 years) recording the highest among the EU countries in 2020.
Eurostat said that the oldest average ages, all at 30 years or higher, were recorded in Croatia (32.4), Slovakia (30.9), Malta and Italy (both 30.2) and Portugal (30.0 years).
By contrast, Denmark (21.2 years), Luxembourg (19.8) and Sweden (17.5) recorded the lowest average ages, all under 22 years old.
In most northern and western countries, young people left the parental home on average in their early to mid-twenties, while in southern and eastern countries the average age was in the late twenties or early thirties, it added.
In the EU, on average, males left the parental household at the age of 27.4 years, and females at 25.4 years. This trend was observed in all countries, i.e. young women moved out of the parental household on average earlier than young men. The only slight exception was Sweden where females left on average 0.1 years after males.
The widest gender gaps were found in Romania, where young males left at 30.0, and females at 25.5 years (4.5 years gender gap), followed by Bulgaria (4.2 gender gap) with males moving out at 32.0, and females at 27.8 years.
In Croatia, both young men and women moved out the latest in the EU (at the age of 34.0 and 30.9 years, respectively), representing the third widest gender gap of 3.1 years.
Sweden, Luxembourg and Estonia recorded the smallest gender gaps with 0.1, 0.4 and 0.5 years difference respectively between young males and females leaving the parental home.
The gender gap was more pronounced in countries where young people left the parental home later and less pronounced in countries where they left earlier.
