The rise in single women translates into greater political power and more — “In the near future, American politics, both national and local, may turn on the degree to which people remain single, and also whether they decide to have children.” That declaration appeared in an article by Joel Kotkin and Samuel J. Abrams, The Rise of the Single Woke (and Young, Democratic)…

Mindsets that sound romantic can be perilous — The belief that a person is just not complete without a spouse got its most memorable expression in the movie Jerry Maguire, when Jerry tells Dorothy, “You complete me.” Whether that strikes you as romantic or ripe for mocking, it is a quote that has made its mark. It shows…

Living alone, spending time alone, aging alone — those were readers’ most loved stories in 2022 — Living alone, being alone, spending time alone, aging alone — this past year, just about every time I published a story that had something to do with aloneness, lots of people seemed to love it. At the end of every year, I look back at the stories I wrote to…

Scholars and journalists are taking single people seriously. Advocacy, though, is lagging behind. — Getting single people and single life taken seriously should not be a hard sell. In the U.S., nearly half of all adults 18 and older are not married. On the average, Americans spend more years of their adult lives not married than married. This is not just an American or…

Romantic coupling isn’t a magical road to happiness. For some, it is exactly the wrong route — If you are single, living alone, and feeling down, do you think you are sad because you are single and living alone? Do you think that if you would just find a romantic partner and get married, or at least move in with a romantic partner — or any other…

Books, blogs, videos, podcasts, discussion groups, advocacy groups, academic resources, and practical help — Search for resources for single people and you will probably be inundated with advice for becoming unsingle. That ends here! For years, I have been putting together resources for unapologetically single people — those who want to embrace their single lives, and are not whining about being single or trying…

We need to own our single lives: No more defensiveness, no more settling — I’ve been keeping my eye on the ways singlehood is portrayed and discussed ever since I saved my first clipping 30 years ago, on December 17, 1992. At the time, positive representations of single life were less common than they are now. The recent progress is a good thing. But…

Identities around parenting and not parenting: Towards more open-minded, destigmatizing understandings — Experiences around parenting, such as deciding if, when, and how to parent, can be important to our identities. In an article introducing the term “reproductive identity,” Aurelie M. Athan of Columbia University argues that “there are few dimensions of the human experience of this magnitude, shared by all peoples and…

Single people appreciate these businesses and thought leaders and will be loyal to them — Single people often get short shrift in a world obsessed with marriage and coupling, and at Unmarried Equality and elsewhere, I have often pointed out examples of singlism (the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and marginalizing of single people, and the discrimination against them). But just as important as all the ways in…