SAN JOSE: A quarter of homes are now “lone-person” households, and new research shows the experience of living alone depends very much on a number of factors, including gender, education, income and age.
It turns out that living alone is linked to social advantage for younger women but social disadvantage among middle-aged men, according to new research.
The demographic trends research suggests that for professional women in their 20s and 30s, settling down and having kids is not the only thing on their agenda.
Although the rates of lone-person households have increased sharply since the 1970s, they have plateaued since 2001.
Researchers suspect this is because of the soaring increases in property prices, and increased stability in the age that people are partnering (usually in their late 20s and early 30s).
Living alone is a little more common among women than among men, but women living alone are, on average, substantially older than men who live alone.
In the past 25 years there has also been a sharp increase in the proportion of those living alone who are aged 80 and older – from 9 per cent to 15 per cent of those living alone.
Some of these changes reflect the aging population. Widowhood is the main cause of living alone for women in their 70s and men and women in their 80s…