A "boomerang generation" of young people have been forced to return to their parents' homes.

High house prices, poor wages and the burden of student debt have left hundreds of thousands of millennials in an adolescent limbo well into their thirties.

And figures suggest that many of them expect to stay there forever.

A new analysis of ONS figures suggests that almost 100,000 millennials who live with their parents think they will never move out.

The "failure to launch" phenomenon means more than a million young adults are still in their childhood bedrooms - and many of them see their parents' home as their best chance of owning property.

If the trend continues, another half a million will be living with their parents in the next decade.

Analysis of ONS data by insurance company Aviva suggested that the number of young people aged between 25 and 34 who still live at home has grown to 1.23 million.

A survey by the insurer found that 8 per cent of them say they see no prospect of ever leaving - meaning 98,400 young adults expect to live with their parents forever.

Dan Wilson-Craw, of campaign group Generation Rent, said many young people had given up on both the housing market and the rental market because prices were too high, leading to households with several generations under one roof.

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"We see it particularly in really expensive areas, where people can't even afford to rent any more.

"If you're starting a family and working you expect that you will have your own space, but there's a growing number of people who are finding themselves in compromised living situations," he said.

The numbers who are still living at home have increased by more than a third in ten years.

The insurer added that high house prices were to blame. During this period the price of the average first home has risen from £146,000 to £211,000, while wages have stagnated.

The research suggests that many young people are simply waiting for their parents' home to become theirs. One in five said that the only way they would ever own a home is by inheriting one.

The figures also show a gender imbalance. More men than women remained stuck at home into their 20s and 30s, with men accounting for 835,000 of the 1.23m "boomerang kids".

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Dr Oliver Robinson, a senior lecturer in psychology at Greenwich University and author of Development Through Adulthood, said that men were unable to deal with the demands of living independently.

The trend for men to leave home later than women is a shift which occurred in the early 1970s when cohabitation became more acceptable and young people were single for longer.

"You move out of the parental home and you're expected to be fully self-sufficient. I think that men are still less good at being fully rounded human beings," he said.

In practice, he added, this meant feeling unable to cope with basic household chores independently.

Women are "better suited to modern life," added Dr Robinson, while men have been stuck at home as a side-effect of women's emancipation, which means they can no longer expect to have a partner to deal with domestic chores.

Lindsey Rix, of Aviva, said: “The challenges of getting on the property ladder are well publicised, but it’s startling to see that one in three adults who live with parents expect never to own a property and further fifth believe the only way they will own a home is by inheriting one."