All the nicknames for today’s twentysomethings are depressing. We are Generation Rent (thanks to the inflated housing market), the Jilted Generation (thanks to our dire economic bequest) and the Boomerang Generation (thanks to the high proportion of us who’ve moved back in with our parent).

This week, the Office for National Statistics revealed that the number in the lat camp is swelling. One in three men and one in five women aged between 29 and 34 are now back in the single bed of their childhood, starting at the poster they used to kiss as a teenager and the curtain their parent chose.

Predictably, these figures prompted the usual accusation that these prodigal sons and daughters are mollycoddled “adultescents”, who’ve grown used to a fridge that is perpetually stocked and the washing fairy cleaning and ironing their clothes. “go forth and seek your independence,” the oldies opine.

They might as well suggest the young go and live in palaces. For few will have chosen freely to return to the parental home. They are there due to exorbitant property prices, low wages, high unemployment, student debt and unpaid internship. And their number is only set to grow: the National Housing Federation predicts that house prices will climb by 35 per cent in the next seven years, stopping ever more of this generation from getting on the ladder.

Those who can actually live with their parents are the lucky ones. It means their parents haven’t cast their children off at the age of 18, it also suggests there are jobs nearby. It isn’t ideal for both parties though, now that you have to ask for permission for friends to come over and the like. On the other hand, parents have endured 18 years of partial house arrest.

There is a simple solution to this problem, of course: build more affordable homes. The social damage high rents and high houses prices are causing is clear sp let’s halt their march ever upwards. The rent is to damn high.