You have to consider: your parents' house almost by definition of them being parents, has excess space outside of your parents' needs. Why? Because you had to live there as a kid, potentially with your siblings.
So that's pretty much free housing if you live there. Of course there's an opportunity cost to giving you that space, but it's rarely actually priced. i.e. if you didn't live with your parents, they'd rarely rent out the room to some stranger. So it can virtually always be seen as free housing.
Compared to that, an entire extra apartment for you and your partner, is not free.
Then you figure in some extra factors, like rent control keeping your parents' contract prices way below what you'd have to pay. (my parents have a bigger house, same city, nicer neighbourhood, and pay half of what I pay for my studio). Or conversely, if they bought, their mortgage payments by now are probably low or non-existent, and property taxes are much lower than the would-be rent.
And finally if you look at things like having to buy new furniture vs parent-living, a more sober or less exotic lifestyle of parent-living, and all kinds of tiny economies of scale of living with more than 1 person (partner), plus the likelihood of getting heavily subsidised by your parents left and right when it comes to rent, groceries etc, and yes, for the child, living with his or her parents is generally much cheaper.
Somehow the only person I know that still lives with his parents is the brother of my girlfriend, he's 30.
Most people I know don't want to do this and leave early, between 18 and 21. And the rest left for university (or after if their parents lived where they studied)
I had a "single mom" and we we're rather poor. After she heard that I want to leave, which I told her 5 months before I actually left, she searched for a smaller home and got it after 2 months, so I had to live in the living room of the new home for 3 months.
When I was 21 some old teacher (>50 years) told me he was living in a shared flat with friends and not with his girlfriend and I was baffled. Now I'm 30 and still live in a shared flat with a friend.
You have to consider: your parents' house almost by definition of them being parents, has excess space outside of your parents' needs. Why? Because you had to live there as a kid, potentially with your siblings.
So that's pretty much free housing if you live there. Of course there's an opportunity cost to giving you that space, but it's rarely actually priced. i.e. if you didn't live with your parents, they'd rarely rent out the room to some stranger. So it can virtually always be seen as free housing.
Compared to that, an entire extra apartment for you and your partner, is not free.
Then you figure in some extra factors, like rent control keeping your parents' contract prices way below what you'd have to pay. (my parents have a bigger house, same city, nicer neighbourhood, and pay half of what I pay for my studio). Or conversely, if they bought, their mortgage payments by now are probably low or non-existent, and property taxes are much lower than the would-be rent.
And finally if you look at things like having to buy new furniture vs parent-living, a more sober or less exotic lifestyle of parent-living, and all kinds of tiny economies of scale of living with more than 1 person (partner), plus the likelihood of getting heavily subsidised by your parents left and right when it comes to rent, groceries etc, and yes, for the child, living with his or her parents is generally much cheaper.