By CEE do you mean the European Economic Community? Or are you referring to eastern European communism? I don't know how the situation was there, but in western Europe, people could absolutely afford to at least rent in their 20s. My grandparents, who weren't rich at all (my granddad was a nurse) could afford a very large house, and my parents could afford to buy a fairly large house when they were 34. And I know that in Germany (central Europe), houses tend to be cheaper (at least today; not sure if it was the same back then).

CEE refers to Central and Eastern Europe, so countries such as GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland.

The situation was bad. It wasn't legal to rent.

Fair enough. But communist countries, especially towards the 1980s when they were basically bankrupt, is rather a special case. In western, northern and much of central Europe, the situation was quite different.

For sure, but that means the original claim

> People in their 20s having their own digs is, I think, a decidedly American phenomenon. In most of the poorer parts of the world (including, for example, Central and Eastern Europe), 30+ years ago younger crowd managed to have sex just fine, using dorm rooms, snatching time while parents were away, etc. My 2c.

is true then. It's only talking about the situation in the poorer parts of the world and not elsewhere, and gives CEE in 1980s as an example.

Only partially. It's not decidedly American, because it's also true in western, central and northern Europe. And probably many parts of the world. Most of the world is not communist.