Croatia tops the list in terms of average age at which young people leave their homes. According to 2016 data collected by Eurostat, 72.3 percent of Croatian youths aged 18-34 live with their parents - the highest proportion across all EU countries.

In that respect, Croatia has beaten all other countries with a similar, Mediterranean mentality, and lags massively behind Scandinavian countries where youths gain their independence very early on, Novi List reported on Saturday.

In Finland, 20 percent of youths aged 18-34 still live with their parents, and in Denmark even fewer, 19.7 percent – which is the lowest ratio in Europe. In Mediterranean countries like Greece, Malta, Italy, or Spain, the ratio is considerably higher, but hovers around 60 percent, on par with Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania. In Serbia it is 67 percent, in Slovakia 70 percent, and in Macedonia 73.3 percent.

And Danes, Finns, or Swedes move out of their family homes at an average age of 21, in Croatia the average age is 32, on par with Macedonians and Montenegrins. In Malta, Spain, Greece, and Italy the average age is 30- but neighbouring Slovenians leave become independent three and a half years earlier than Croatians.

Although youths globally get married less often, and choose to do so increasingly later in life, and stay at school increasingly longer, and have more difficulty getting jobs – which all affect the age of independence, Croatian demographer Stjepan Sterc told Novi List that an additional reason in Croatia is its education system which trains children to get used to not being independent.

“Unlike in other Mediterranean countries, where vocational schools are just as popular as general education high schools, the huge majority of children in Croatia end up going to grammar schools after going through elementary schooling, which means that even after graduating from high school they are still not ready for independence, as they have no vocational training whatsoever. Then they continue to depend on their parents throughout their university studies, which often can take many years,” Sterc said.

He added that Croatians have a specific lifestyle which includes spending about half of their lifetime not being economically active.

“Children leave home only after graduating from university, which happens at about 25-27 years of age at the earliest. The average length of retirement is 17 years, and expected lifespan is 78 years for men, and 81 for women. This means that Croatians are non-active during more than 50 percent of their entire lifetime,” Sterc said.

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