Half of young Australian adults now live with their parents

Half of young Australian adults now live with their parents – and it’s not hard to see why

Housing costs are rising, with renters facing the most significant impact, and financial stress is also on the rise, according to the largest survey of its kind.

Every year, thousands of Australians participate in the long-running HILDA survey.

This questionnaire—formally known as the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey—has been monitoring the same households since 2001.

As families have grown over the last two decades, the study has expanded to include approximately 17,000 individuals annually across 9,000 households, providing a unique perspective on 21st-century Australian life and its evolution.

This week, the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, which oversees the project, released its annual summary of the social and economic trends shaping the nation.

Here are six things we learned.

Half of young Australians are living with their parents

The trend is clear: moving out has become increasingly difficult.

In 2001, 39% of people aged 18-29 lived at home with their parents. By 2024, that figure has climbed to just under 50%.

Young men are more likely to reside at home than women, though that gap has narrowed slightly over the past 23 years. Additionally, 36% of 18- to 29-year-olds living at home in 2024 are full-time students.

It is also worth noting that the significant shift toward remaining at home occurred during the first decade of the century.

While longer periods of study are one contributing factor, the rising expense of moving out is another, which we will address later.

One group is being left behind

Employment rates hit record highs in 2024, with the survey indicating that 84.4% of working-age men and 76% of working-age women were employed.

The Australian workforce is better educated, with more than half of women aged 25-44 now holding a university degree.

Men are also more educated today than they were at the turn of the century, yet in every age bracket, women were found to be “considerably better educated than men”, the report stated.

However, there is one demographic where employment outcomes have deteriorated significantly.

As Kyle Peyton, a co-author of the report, says: “Men aged 25 to 44 who did not complete year 12 have become less likely to be in full-time work and more likely to be outside the labour force.

“Their full-time employment rate fell from 70% in 2001 to 63% in 2024, while the share outside the labour force rose from 12% to 22%.”

Women who did not finish high school—and did not attain any other higher education—have also left the workforce at higher rates, increasing from 40% in 2001 to 48% in 2024.

While that is not as sharp an increase, it remains much higher than the figures for men.

Household income has trended higher this decade …

The pandemic, substantial government lockdown payments, and the post-Covid inflationary surge have created a volatile environment.

Median disposable (after-tax) household incomes reached a peak in 2021 before being hit by soaring living costs starting in 2022. The HILDA survey indicates that the typical household earned less in 2024 than at the 2021 peak, though still more than in 2019.

Looking at the long term, the survey shows that household incomes grew robustly through the first decade of the century before leveling off leading up to the pandemic.

… but financial wellbeing is down

On average, Australians report lower financial wellbeing than they did prior to Covid-19, despite higher median household incomes.

As Inga Lass, the lead author of the report, says “the post-pandemic shock to cost-of-living is clear”.

Between 2020 and 2024, there were declines in reported financial wellbeing across all age groups, with the exception of those over 65.

The survey asked five questions, requesting participants to rate how well each described them on a scale from one (“not at all”) to five (“completely”). Researchers then converted these responses into a wellbeing score out of 100, where a higher number indicates greater wellbeing.

The percentage of people who could enjoy life “not at all” or “very little” due to money management rose from 11.3% in 2020 to 12.7% in 2024. In 2020, 62.1% agreed or strongly agreed that they felt in control of their daily finances; by 2024, that dropped to 58.5%.

Furthermore, while 60% of people in 2020 agreed or strongly agreed they were comfortable with their spending relative to their income, that share fell to 53.8% in 2024.

“These results imply that worsening perceptions of meeting shorter-term ‘every day’ financial outcomes explain a sizeable shift in the reported decline in financial wellbeing over the four-year period,” the report said.

It is widely understood that the cost of maintaining a home has been a primary driver of the current era of high living expenses.

The HILDA survey reveals that weekly mortgage payments—covering both principal and interest—surged between 2021 and 2024 to reach new highs as the Reserve Bank increased interest rates.

Currently, the RBA has reversed the three rate cuts implemented in 2025, meaning the burden on mortgage holders is comparable to when the previous survey was conducted.

The data shows that weekly private rental costs remained relatively stable throughout the 2010s but have since climbed steadily.

While overall household incomes are lower than they were in 2021, housing costs have risen, placing significant pressure on many Australians.

Housing stress is particularly acute for renters in the regions

The HILDA survey utilizes the “30-40 rule” to assess housing stress.

A household is considered to be in housing stress if its housing costs exceed 30% of its disposable income and it falls within the bottom 40% of households by disposable income.

Among major cities, renters in Sydney are the most likely to experience housing stress, with more than 31% meeting the criteria in 2024—roughly double the rate seen in Adelaide.

The next most difficult market is Brisbane, where 26% of renters face housing stress. Across all mainland capital cities, one in four renters is experiencing such stress.

While those rates are high, the proportion of regional renters in housing stress is substantially higher at 30%, nearly double the pre-pandemic level.

Conversely, about one in 10 homeowners with a mortgage are in housing stress, a figure that has remained generally consistent over the past two decades.