4.68 mln Spaniards live alone, young adults stay at home: report

MADRID, April 12 (Xinhua) -- A report published in Spain on Thursday shows that 4.68 million Spaniards, roughly 10 percent of the population, live alone, with over 2 million of those aged 65 or over.

Meanwhile, many young adults are forced to live with their parents until they are over the age of 30.

The study carried out by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) finds that virtually a quarter of homes in Spain have only one occupant and that 1.96 million of those are people aged 65 or over.

Perhaps due to the fact women live longer than men, 1.41 million (almost 72 percent) of those single households are occupied by women, of whom 47 percent are widows.

This contrasts with those living alone under the age of 65, where the majority (1,633,800) are men, in comparison to 1,097,700 women.

The study shows that despite more people living solitary lives, the most common household is still made up of two people, with 10.3 million households (out of a total of 18.47 million), consisting of couples with or without children.

Meanwhile, a further 1,842,500 households consist of a single parent with children, with women the head of the family in 1,529,999 (83 percent) of those cases. In 40 percent of those homes, the woman had been widowed, and in 39.3 percent she was divorced.

The study also highlights the problems many young people have in leaving the family home to establish their own households, despite the supposed end of the economic crisis. High housing prices and rents mean that over a third of young adults aged between 25 and 34 still live with one or both of their parents.

A total of 52 percent of those aged between 25 and 29 still reside in the family home and almost a quarter (24.1 percent) of Spaniards between the age of 30 and 34 have not yet been able to gain their independence. Enditem