Single Life - Part I

Being single is a mixed bag of feelings. Recently, I asked for volunteers who are single to share the advantages and the challenges of being single. And, I explored research about single life. Because this is a huge topic, there will be several consecutive blog posts throughout the month considering thoughts about being single, the advantages, and the challenges of single hood through the narratives of several single people. This is the first part of the series on the Single Life.

According to the U.S. Census, 2021, “On November 29, [2021,] the Census Bureau released its estimates of America’s family and living arrangements for the year 2021. Results showed a continuation of trends ongoing for decades. The number and percentage of unmarried Americans has grown, as has the number and percentage of people living alone. The age at which people first marry, among those who do marry, has remained high, too, and has increased for women” (www.census.gov/newsroom/).

One article that reflects the census research shows a rise in unmarried Americans and in people living alone: “…there are now 122 million Americans who are divorced or widowed or have always been single. Previously, I charted the number of unmarried Americans from 1970 through 2019. In 1970, there were 38 million unmarried Americans, accounting for 28 percent of people 18 and older” (qtd. in https://www.unmarried.org/featured/the-number-of-unmarried-americans-continues-to-grow-latest-census-report-shows/).

unmarried.org muses in their 4 December 2021 article , “Why [are] our [singles] numbers growing? It is not because society is so kind to us.” The article continues: …”The escalating costs of being single in America,” published at Vox, Anne Helen Petersen reviews the conditions that can make single life so difficult, especially economically. She also underscores how hostile the U.S. is to single people. It is a valuable article, getting a lot of attention. One of the most important points Petersen makes is about what we should make of the growing numbers of unmarried Americans. As members of Unmarried Equality know all too well: ‘These numbers aren’t increasing because society has shifted to accommodate the single or solo-living. Quite the contrary; they are increasing even though the United States is still organized, in pretty much every way, to accommodate and facilitate the lives of partnered and cohabiting people, particularly married people.’…And yet, a just-published Pew report described quite an interesting finding. When Americans were asked, earlier this year (2021), ‘What about your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling, or satisfying?’, only 9 percent mentioned a spouse, romantic partner, marriage, dating, or romantic love. That was down from 20 percent just a few years ago (2017).

The Pew researchers, in 2021, also posed a similar question to representative samples of adults from 16 other places: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. In every one of those places, the percentage of people who mentioned romantic partners or romantic themes was lower than it was in the U.S” (qtd. in https://www.unmarried.org/featured/the-number-of-unmarried-americans-continues-to-grow-latest-census-report-shows/).

From the respected Pew Research Center, “The most recent reports show that number of single people is continuing to increase, as it has been for decades. At the same time, the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against single people (singlism) has continued as well, as has the glorifying of couples and romantic coupling (matrimania). But at some level, maybe people just aren’t buying all this mythology anymore about the wonder of couples. Romantic partners just don’t come to mind very often when people are asked what they find meaningful, fulfilling, or satisfying in their lives”( https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profile-of-single-americans/). For more statistical detail, I suggest you read the research from the insightful article in the Pew Research Center website cited above.

Next week’s blog post, Single Life - Part II, will feature one of the Single Life narratives from a single person in her early 30s. The interviewee shares relevant, real perspectives that you will find compelling.