Home > Statistics > Families > 2009 > Annual Review > 6. Girls move away from parental home earlier than boys

6. Girls move away from parental home earlier than boys

It is difficult to get a clear picture of when children leave home, as students were previously not accepted as permanent residents of their place of study. They were recorded in the population register as living with their parents. In June 1994, a new act entered into force entitling everyone to choose their official municipality of residence. Some students take advantage of this right. Children’s leaving home is described below by the number of those with the status of a child in the family. A child of a family can, however, live at home and bring his or her spouse to live with him/her or have a child, whereby the young person forming a family no longer has the status of a child of the parents’ family in the statistics but an adult in a family of his/her own. Such living arrangements are very rare in Finland.

Between 1985 and 1993, even before the entry into force of the new Act on the Municipality of Domicile, there was a steep fall in the percentage of young people with the status of a child. Their proportion has continued to fall even further over the past few years.

Table 10. Young people aged 20 to 24 with the status of a child in 1985–2009

Year	Aged 20 to 24			Living with parents			Those living with parents as proportion of all, %
	Total	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls
1985	377 267	192 738	184 529	203 186	126 280	76 906	53,9	65,5	41,7
1990	343 608	175 039	168 569	165 754	103 971	61 783	48,2	59,4	36,7
1995	305 051	156 008	149 043	126 448	79 642	46 806	41,5	51,0	31,4
2000	327 230	167 084	160 146	109 510	70 895	38 615	33,5	42,4	24,1
2005	333 936	170 710	163 226	96 473	63 875	32 598	28,9	37,4	20,0
2006	332 004	169 860	162 144	91 724	61 060	30 664	27,6	35,9	18,9
2007	327 266	167 344	159 922	88 109	58 520	29 589	26,9	35,0	18,5
2008	325 440	166 488	158 952	86 007	56 819	29 188	26,4	34,1	18,4
2009	324 472	165 988	158 484	85 080	55 871	29 209	26,2	33,7	18,4

Girls leave their childhood home earlier than boys. Conscription may be one of the reasons why boys continue to live at home, but the difference is too large to be explained by this alone.

Today, as many as 69 per cent of girls but only 43 per cent of boys have moved away from home by the time they are 20. For girls the percentage share has remained unchanged since 2006 and for boys since 2008.

Figure 11A. Young men aged 18 to 30 by family status in 2009

Figure 11B. Young women aged 18 to 30 by family status in 2009

Finland has a total of 59,081 persons, 45,762 of them men, who have turned 30 and hold the status of a child in their family. The number of persons who have turned 30 and hold the status of a child decreased by around one thousand from the previous year.

Source: Population and Cause of Death Statistics, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Marjut Pietiläinen (09) 1734 2798, Timo Nikander (09) 1734 3250, vaesto.tilasto@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

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Updated 30.11.2010