Boomerang children cost £72 each week: Quarter of all over-50s have adult offspring living with them at home
- Many parents allow their children to live at home without paying rent or bills
- This puts the price of a stay-at-home child close to £3,750 a year
- Adult children who do offer help to their parents on average pay £51 a week
- Estimated more than three million in their 20s and 30s who live with parents
Boomerang children cost their middle aged parents an average of £72 a week each, according to a report yesterday.
It said that a quarter of all over-50s have adult children who won’t leave the house and find their own homes, and that in many cases they allow them to live without paying rent or a contribution to the bills.
For those individuals and couples - many already bearing the strain of demanding jobs, meeting the mortgage and the bills, and looking after their own parents - the price of a stay-at-home child is close to £3,750 a year.
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Boomerang children cost their middle aged parents an average of £72 a week each, according to a new report
It warned that parents should be careful about sacrificing too much of their own future for the sake of helping a grown-up child who may be trying to save for their own home while paying off student loans and other education debts.
The findings from research carried out by the MetLife insurance company comes at a time when millions of couples are learning to cope with boomerang children.
Official estimates say there are well over three million young people in their 20s and 30s who still live with their parents, and that one in five young men are still in the old family home at the age of 28. Many have returned from university and prefer to live cheaply with their parents than face the daunting costs of renting or buying their own home.
MetLife director Dominic Grinstead
MetLife director Dominic Grinstead said: ‘Helping out family is a powerful motivation for parents and it is understandable that many over-50s are happy to allow adult children to live at home for free. The financial pressures on young adults from the need to save for a house deposit while finding a job and in many cases paying off university debts make it almost inevitable that millions of young adults have to live in their family home.
‘But parents need to think carefully about how they combine helping family with ensuring they are maximising their own retirement saving.’
A survey carried out for the company by Consumer Intelligence among more than 2,500 people found that one in 10 people over 50 allow adult children to stay at home without making any contribution to their rent or keep. They make up more than four out of 10 of the couples who have boomerang children.
The adult children who do offer help to their parents on average pay £51 a week towards the bills.
Parents are often persuaded to lend money to their children – but the survey suggested that experience makes them more reluctant to do so.
More than a third, 34 per cent, lend money to their first child. But the proportion of parents who gave loans to their second child fell to 25 per cent, and for third children the figure was 20 per cent.
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