Spiralling house prices and the growing weight of student debt means young Britons are taking longer to fly the nest, according to the Office for National Statistics.

In 2006 around 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women aged 20 to 24 were living with their parents, significantly higher than a decade ago.

This may have less to do with a warming in parental-filial relations than a growing difficulty getting on the property ladder. Since 1995 average house prices for first-time buyers have risen 204 percent while average incomes have risen 92 percent.

The annual "Social Trends" survey, a must-read for anyone working in advertising, marketing or social policy, also highlights the extent to which family structures are changing. Since 1972 the number of Britons living alone has more than doubled while the proportion of children living in lone-parent families has more than tripled.

The move towards a larger number of smaller households has not been lost on the construction sector. More than 40 percent of new-build homes last year were two-bedroom properties, while three-bedroom homes, the most popular construction during the 1990s, accounted for little more than a quarter.

Demand for property means Britain's towns and cities are becoming increasingly congested. Nowhere is this more apparent than London where housing density has more than doubled over the past decade to more than a hundred dwellings per hectare.

Housing people like tinned sardines does not come without costs however. Complaints about noisy neighbours have risen fivefold in the last decade with loud music cited as the chief culprit.

Source: Reuters