Parties. Debaucherous behaviour. Independence. Freedom. The male rite of passage once known as the bachelor pad is officially dead.
That’s according to the latest figures from the U.K’s Office for National Statistics which found that almost a third of men today don’t move out of their parents’ home until their mid-30s.
Whilst this study focuses on the greater British population, similar trends can also be identified in Australia with a 2009 social trends study by the Bureau of Statistics finding that 32 per cent of men aged between 20 and 34 are still living at home with their parents, compared to 20 per cent of females in the same age group.
Whilst the rising price of local real estate is proving to be a driving factor behind this trend, Frank Furedi who is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent believes that this phenomenon also comes down to another reason – a lack of aspiration amongst today’s men and the “feminisation of society”.
“A lot of young men find the transition to adulthood particularly difficult because male values and masculine values are regarded less favourably than feminine values,” said Furedi. “Masculine norms have been devalued quite considerably.”