Utrecht more popular among young women than young men

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) investigated how many people aged 17 to 22 moved to cities that have universities. CBS believes that the vast majority of these young people are students, although there must be a few exceptions. 

Each year, between 2015 and 2021, around 36,000 young people in the Netherlands left their parents’ home to live on their own or with roommates in a university town. That figure has now fallen by 4,000, which CBS expert Tanja Traag links to the housing shortage and rising rent prices. 

In recent years, students in the Netherlands have become more likely to remain living with their parents. “But most move out eventually before graduating,” says Traag. “It’s just that, nowadays, they tend to do it in their second or third year.”

Twelve cities
The Netherlands has twelve university cities. Amsterdam and Groningen attract the most young people. In the peak year of 2023, when more students enrolled in higher education because a government benefit known as the "basic student grant" was reintroduced, Groningen was the most attractive city in the country for young people. Amsterdam was the most popular city in all other years.

Text continues below the chart

Image: HOP, based on CBS data

Young men are more likely to move to cities with technical universities, such as Delft, Enschede and Eindhoven, while Nijmegen and Maastricht are the most popular university cities among young women: 66.1 per cent of young people who moved out of their parents' homes to live in Maastricht in 2025 were women. Utrecht is also more popular among young women than among young men: 62.7 per cent of young people living in Utrecht on their own or with roommates for the first time are women. Only 37.3 per cent are men.

Women's university
This comes as no surprise, as Utrecht University (UU) has traditionally attracted more women than men. UU was even known as a "women’s university". That’s still the case. In 2025, 10,055 women (62.5 percent) enrolled at Utrecht University, along with 5,892 men (36.6 percent); 130 freshers (0.8 percent) did not specify their gender.

62.7 per cent of young people living on their own or with roommates for the first time in Utrecht are women, and 37.3 per cent are men. This is according to figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Image: HOP

The statisticians have also mapped out which cities young people are moving away from and which cities they are moving into. Most university cities attract young people from the same region or province. For example, Groningen, up North, attracts few young people from Limburg, down South. The opposite is also true. And, if you're from Groningen or Maastricht, you are unlikely to move to Amsterdam. 

There are exceptions, of course. Located right in the middle of the country, Utrecht attracts young people from all corners of the Netherlands, as does Enschede. But Wageningen takes the crown: for young people moving there, the distance between their new city and their family home seems to matter little. After all, Wageningen University offers degrees that aren't available anywhere else.

This CBS study did not include cities with large universities of applied sciences. Only research universities were considered. International students were not included, either.

Utrecht, my town
In 2025, 4,000 young people left their parents' place and found a new home in Utrecht. Only 13 per cent of those were already living in the city. Most outsiders were from Amsterdam (3.9 per cent), but many came from other cities in the province of Utrecht, such as Amersfoort, which accounted for 3 per cent of the influx.

The graph below, produced by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), shows the municipalities of origin of young people aged between 17 and 22 who have left home and moved to Utrecht. Municipalities from which fewer than 0.1 per cent of young people originate are not shown.

On the CBS website, these charts are interactive. We recommend checking them out.