More adult children live at home

Research from Saga Home  Insurance has found that around thee million adults across the UK are putting up their grown-up offspring, the average age of which is 27.

The Office for National Statistics estimates 1.8 million men and 1.1 million women between the age of 20 and 34 are living with their parents.

While the most common reason children return home is finishing university, one in ten said that splitting from partners (10 per cent) and saving for a  deposit for their own house (9 per cent) has forced them to move back in with their folks.

This may explain why one in seven of these boomerang babes are aged between 31 and 40.

Children from less well-off families are the mostly likely to stay living with mum and dad (20 per cent). whereas only 14 per cent of wealthy families are putting up their children.

London is the region most likely to house adult children (19 per cent) while adult children from the East Midlands were least likely to move back home (12 per cent).

Despite most people owning mobile phones, laptops and other expensive gadgets, more than half of parents haven’t  updated their home insurance to include all their children’s belongings.

Roger Ramsden, chief executive, Saga Services, said: “Encouraging children to start saving for their first home when they’re younger could be high on most parents’ agendas after reading this research.

“With so many children choosing to stay at home longer, it just proves that a parent’s work is never quite done and that they will foot the bill for far longer than they originally expected to.”