A living room with six person sitting on a couch, lying on the floor and looking at a computer and some papers spread out on the floor

In 2021, in the EU, the proportion of young people aged 15-29 living in overcrowded households was estimated to be more than one quarter at 26%. The overcrowding rate for young people was 9 percentage points higher than the overcrowding rate for the total population (17%). 

Among the EU members, there were considerable differences in the overcrowding rates for young people aged 15-29. Romania (60%), Bulgaria (57%), Latvia (54%), Greece (48%) and Poland (47%) registered the highest overcrowding rates for people aged 15-29, while the lowest registered rates were reported by Cyprus and Malta (both recorded close to 4%), Ireland (5%), the Netherlands and Belgium (both close to 8%).

Bar chart: Overcrowding rate, %, 2021

Source dataset: ilc_lvho05a

 

Young people vs total population: highest differences in rates in Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland

The overcrowding rate for young people was more than twice as high as the percentage for the population in Denmark (21.6% for young people vs 9.2% population of all ages), the Netherlands (7.5% vs 3.4%) and Finland (15.6% vs 7.4%). 

The lowest differences between young people and the general population were recorded in Ireland (1.1 percentage points – pp), Cyprus and Malta (both 1.3 pp), Belgium (2.3 pp) and Luxembourg (2.6 pp).

For more information

Methodological notes

  • The overcrowding rate is the percentage of the population living in an overcrowded household. A person is considered as living in an overcrowded household if the household does not have at its disposal a minimum number of rooms equal to the sum of:
    • one room for the household;
    • one room per couple in the household;
    • one room per single person aged 18 and more;
    • one room per pair of single people of the same gender between 12 and 17 years of age;
    • one room per single person between 12 and 17 years of age and not included in the previous category;
    • one room per pair of children under 12 years of age.
  • Luxembourg had a break in series.
  • Slovakia data is from 2020.

If you have any queries, please visit our contact us page.