BERLIN, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- German youth are spending more time in the education system than their previous cohorts, figures released on Friday by the Federal Statistical Office suggested.
A spokesperson for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) told Xinhua on Friday that "the development was pleasing but unsurprising, given that a growing share of citizens attended university and other forms of higher education."
According to a micro-census conducted by the Wiesbaden-based statisticians, 84 percent of Germans aged between 15 and 24 who were unmarried and living with their parents were attending a school or higher education institution. In 1996, the corresponding figure was 74 percent.
The Federal Statistical Office also noted in its report that the trend was largely due to the increased amount of time spent on average by Germans in education.
Of the 24-year old single Germans living with their parents, more than half attended schools (52 percent), or were enrolled in higher education institutions (36 percent) in 2016. Twenty years ago, the respective figures were 35 percent and 28 percent.
Girls and young women living with their parents were more likely to attend a school or higher education institution than their male counterparts, a circumstance which remained unchanged across the 20-year period investigated by the study (87 percent vs 82 percent in 2016, 79 percent vs 69 percent in 1996).
The term school was used to denote both general secondary schooling institutions, as well as more specialized vocational training centers in the study.
