Singleton (lifestyle)

Last updated

The term singleton describes those who live in a single-person household, especially those who prefer the lifestyle of living alone. [1] [2] It was popularized by the Bridget Jones novels and films, [3] [4] [5] but it is also used in sociology.

Contents

Patterns

The number of Americans living alone more than doubled between 1960 and 2017, from 13% to 28%. American Household Composition Past and Present.png
The number of Americans living alone more than doubled between 1960 and 2017, from 13% to 28%.

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg reports that before the 1950s, no society had large numbers of people living alone. Historically, this has happened when elderly people outlive their spouses, and when men have migrated for work. In modern times, large numbers of people have begun to live happily alone in cities and with the help of communication technologies like the telephone, email, and social networking services. Klinenberg has found that the ability of women to work, own property, and initiate divorce creates more opportunities for living alone; in countries like Saudi Arabia where women do not have autonomy, few people live alone. [6]

Single people may live alone before their first romantic partner, after separation, divorce, the end of a cohabiting relationship or after their partner has died. Couples, married or not, may maintain separate residences as an alternative to cohabitation in a long distance relationship, a temporary separation due to troubles in the relationship, or simply living apart together. Since the late twentieth century, marriages across the developed world have often ended in divorce. At the same time, people increasingly choose to remain single. [7] [8]

The number of singletons is correlated with how wealthy the country is. [9] In the United States, individuals saw their inflation-adjusted or real income rose by 51 percent from 1969 to 1996, compared to only 6 percent for households over the same period. [10] : 66  In wealthy countries, people are more likely to choose the privacy, individualism, independence, and sometimes the isolation of living alone. [9] [11] In the Scandinavian countries, single-person households have become commonplace. [12] Data from the Census Bureau of the United States shows that the average number of individuals per household in that country has been falling since at least 1966. More Americans are now living alone. [10] : 66  In poor countries, most people live in extended family groups, which provide material, social, and emotional support to each other, as well as imposing the responsibility of similarly caring for other family members. [9]

Living alone has been found to significantly increase the risk of depression and is associated with other negative mental and physical health outcomes, especially among men, older people, and rural residents. [13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kurutz, Steven (February 23, 2012). "One Is the Quirkiest Number". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  2. ↑ The New York Observer
  3. ↑ "Bridget Jones's Diary". the Guardian. April 4, 2001. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  4. ↑ "'Bridget Jones' singletons threaten housing crisis, figures suggest - Telegraph". December 12, 2009. Archived from the original on December 12, 2009. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  5. ↑ "'Going Solo': What's the Appeal of Living Alone?". PBS NewsHour. March 27, 2012. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  6. ↑ Eric Klinenberg (2013). Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone . Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0143122777.
  7. ↑ Matsuda, Shigeki (January 3, 2020). Low Fertility in Advanced Asian Economies: Focusing on Families, Education, and Labor Markets. Springer Nature. pp. 29–30. ISBN   978-981-15-0710-6. Table 3, pages 29-30. "It is notable that the proportion of males who had ever married/cohabited in the three Asian countries were lower than of males in the same category in the European countries -- in other words, Asian men are more likely to be single."
  8. ↑ Hobsbawm, Eric (1996). "Chapter Eleven: Cultural Revolution". The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991. Abacus. ISBN   978-0-349-10671-7.
  9. 1 2 3 Brooks, Story by David. "The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake". The Atlantic. ISSN   1072-7825 . Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  10. 1 2 Sowell, Thomas (2023). Social Justice Fallacies. New York: Basic Books. ISBN   978-1-5416-0392-9.
  11. ↑ Bolick, Kate (November 2011). "All the Single Ladies". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2025.
  12. ↑ "The rise of singlehood is reshaping the world". The Economist. November 6, 2025. Archived from the original on November 6, 2025. Retrieved November 6, 2025.
  13. ↑ Emamzadeh, Arash (November 30, 2024). "How Living Alone Increases the Risk of Depression". Psychology Today. Retrieved March 4, 2025.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.