The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a report on Tuesday stating that more than ever before, young Aussies are living at home with their parents. Apparently we’re also working on a casual basis, and are more likely to move across the country than any other generation.

Why do you think this is?

I put my hand up to be one of the young people the study is talking about.

I moved out of home, to travel and then go to uni interstate when I was 17. So I ticked two boxes there. It lasted five years.

Time to tick the third box. Poor mum and dad retired, moved out of the place I grew up in to their ‘golden years’ pad, thinking I had flown the coop, and I returned and ruined it all for them.

So why did I move home? Well basically, it’s a lot cheaper. I realised that while I have the opportunity to stay at home for a while and hopefully save up for a place of my own, I should.

So does that make me a spoilt bludger, or smart?

I posted a question on the ‘I am from Liverpool, Sydney...not Liverpool, England!’ group on facebook, asking local Facebookers what they thought of the new stats.

One girl replied: “i left home when i was 17 and got my own place...... [if I was] staying at home , i would kill someone ..... good option if u [can get] a head start can do it, its sooo much cheaper and u can get [ahead] in life , get a house deposit etc, go to uni and have stability to focus on ur studies, but its not for me :( ”

According to the study, in 2006, 23 per cent of people aged 20–34 years were living at home with their parents, compared with 19 per cent in 1986.

What was it like the generation before that, and the one before that, and so on?

I know in the early 70s my Dad moved out of home straight after school, and my Mum stayed at home for a while and helped her parents on their farm before she moved to the big smoke.

So, they both moved out of home because what they wanted to do in their early 20s just wasn’t happening in the same towns or cities as their parents.