Rise in non-dependent children living at home in Chichester

More adults are living at home with their parents in Chichester than a decade before, new census figures show.

Intergenerational Foundation, a charity which campaigns for fairness across the different generations, said equality between older and younger people is at risk if younger generations are unable to get onto the housing ladder and reach the same milestones their parents and grandparents did.

New census figures from the Office for National Statistics show 8,225 non-dependent children lived in the family home in 2021 – up from 6,978 in 2011, when the last census was undertaken.

A non-dependent child is someone living with their parents and is either over-18 and without a partner or child or a 16-18 year old and not in full-time education.

Of the 5,036 households where non-dependent children stayed with their parents, 2,795 of the parents were married or in a civil partnership, 323 were co-habiting, while a further 1,918 were single parents.

The rise locally follows a trend across England and Wales, where the number of non-dependent children living at home increased by 14.7% in the last 10 years, from 4.2 million to 4.9 million.

There was an increase in the number of non-dependent children of all ages between 20 and 73, while the largest rise was among 24 year olds.