Always on demand, a tidy house and ready food every day: when Janis Dek (26) started her first job as an assistant disabled person, she thought it was fine to live with her parents in Nieuw-Vennep for a while. Now, six years later, she is still there, but it is no longer a conscious choice.
She has been looking for a place for herself for three years. “My mother is my best friend and I have all the freedom, but you still have to take each other into account all the time. My parents eat at five o’clock sharp, so I plan my day around that. And I can’t just invite friends without checking if it’s convenient,” she says on the phone.
The search for a suitable home does not really go smoothly. “For a one-bedroom apartment in the Nieuw-Vennep area you are already at 1,300 euros monthly costs. I work 28 hours a week, almost full-time for my position, earning 1,800 to 1,900 per month. I don’t have a relationship, so I have to pay the rent of a house on my own. I would have practically nothing left.”
no fault
Since 2010, the percentage of young adults still living (or again) living with their parents has steadily increased. According to the CBS statistics agency, more than 850,000 people aged 20 to 30 years old now live with their parents. That is 280,000 more than in 2010. The age at which young people in the Netherlands start living on their own has also risen. From 22 years in 2008 to 24.4 years in 2020. Those figures also include see the effect of the introduction of the loan system for students in 2015.
But the loan system and the lack of affordable housing are not the only reasons for living at home longer, says Jan Latten, social demographer and author of the book. Do not panic. Love and happiness in the 21st century. The changed relationship between parents and children also plays a role in this. “Many parents and children today treat each other as roommates. An average eighteen-year-old is already treated like a single person at home. They have their own little world in their parental home, with their own room, their own laptop and telephone, their own TV and sometimes even their own frozen meals in the fridge. In this way, the family actually functions as a kind of living group.”
Pay a high rent or stay at home and save? For Master’s student Rogier Vonk (23) that choice was quickly made. Apart from a semester in Trondheim, Norway, he has always lived with his parents in Utrecht, mainly for financial reasons. “You quickly pay 400 or 500 euros in rent for a room, while I don’t pay board money with my parents. I’m working on my second master’s degree, so I’ve been studying for a while. If I had moved into rooms, I would now have a sky-high student debt.”
Thanks to living at home, that debt remains within limits and he did not have to borrow anything last year. For the time being, says Vonk, he will remain where he is. “I have a good relationship with my parents and I can go wherever I want. Why shouldn’t I stay?” He sees himself only leaving to move in with a partner or when he has a permanent job. “Although with the current housing market it might be more profitable to stay a little longer so that I can still save.”
Also read: A quarter of starters postpone cohabitation or children due to living situation
Flexible and insecure
The fact that a record number of twenty-somethings still live at home is not only because they leave home later. It also happens more often that people in their twenties return temporarily after living independently for a while. They are called ‘boomerang children’ in the statistics. According to the latest survey by Statistics Netherlands (2016), a quarter of nest-leavers return within five years. Social demographer Latten: “You used to leave your home the moment you got married, and once you were gone, you never came back. Now there is no longer a standard road map.”
For today’s twenties, things like relationships, jobs and housing are flexible and insecure, requiring more time to develop and explore what they want. “If a relationship breaks down, a study is interrupted or there are not enough financial resources, it is more acceptable to go back to live with the parents temporarily,” says Latten.
This includes Renée Graveland (25), who works as a coordinator at a cultural center. After five years in rooms, she returned to her parental home in Ede last year. “I had a job and also went to art academy in Maastricht.” She was out of place for this course. “I had no connection with the other students and the atmosphere was against me. In short: work and study cost me too much energy instead of generating energy,” she says.
To catch her breath and think in peace about her next step, she temporarily moved back in with her parents. “Ede is more centrally located in the country. Plus, that way I wouldn’t feel pressured from having to cough up the rent every month.”
The plan was for a maximum of three months, but due to the high rents, the limited supply of living space and health problems, the search for your own apartment or studio is more difficult than hoped. Graveland tries to look at the situation on the bright side. “If you live on your own, you can easily disappear into a kind of isolation during this corona time, while now I can always visit my parents and sister in the evening.”
save a lot
Graveland did not make financial agreements with her parents about board and lodging, but helps with the household. She washes, cooks and occasionally does the shopping. “I just pay for it myself. But I don’t have to worry about things like the energy bill or rent right now.”
Still, a lot of saving is not enough for her. “The cultural sector is not exactly known for good salaries,” she says. “At the end of the month there is money left over, but not as much as I had hoped.”
Janis Dek from Nieuw-Vennep, who pays 250 euros in board money per month, transfers about 600 euros per month to her savings account. “Because I spend less money on outings and dinners in the corona time, I have now saved about 12,000 euros.” She plans to use that money to buy her private lease car soon. “Then my savings account is empty, but I am no longer registered with the BKR. Then I might be able to get more mortgage again.”
Until then, the search for an affordable rental home will continue. “I am registered on Woningnet, in all kinds of new construction projects and I react drowsy. Two weeks ago, for the first time in ages, a nice advertisement came along: an apartment, close to my work, for 850 euros per month.”
Unfortunately for Dek, there were still seventy applications within a day and she did not get the house. “It’s frustrating, but I know I’m not the only one.”
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