Re: Portuguese youngsters stay too long with parents

“… in Portugal there has always been a certain cultural difficulty to accept or promote youth emancipation” – this is not true. My parents married in the late 60s and they left their parents’ home as early as in their young 20s. Like all their generation. In the 70s too.
Also in the late 80s and 90s, young people were studying and getting (some of them) college degrees and maybe in their late 20s they would leave their parents’ home; as an example, my older brother (42 years old) who left our parents’ home in the 90s, when some solid and proper jobs were still available.
Then came the 2000’s huge crisis. This is absolute nonsense. “Culture”? How can a precarious 25 or 30-year-old pay the bills with a terribly low income? Impossible!
The only reason that people in Scandinavia leave their parents’ home is because they are rich. And by rich I mean, a Nordic youngster at 25 or 26 is most likely already graduated or graduating (all paid by the welfare state) and is most likely to have a solid job that allows them to have their small apartment, pay bills and even have some fun, enjoy nature, culture and sports.
In Portugal, since the early 2000s the situation has been getting worse and worse, and people will stay more in their parents’ home. Take someone who is single and earns a wage of €500 per month … oh yeah right, he/she can have a home, but he/she will go through a hard time. I’ve seen couples in their 20s or 30s returning to their parents’ home …
This is not Norway. I am 32 and still at my parents’ home. I don’t want to but I have to stay because my salary is so low – I cannot live by myself.
Ana