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From saving for retirement to health and healthcare cost concerns, aging can be a challenge. Those challenges can be even greater Solo, Secure, and Joyful: How Single People Can Thrive as They Age. From saving for retirement to health and healthcare cost concerns, aging can be a challenge.
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Those challenges can be even greater for those who are single. Dr. Bella DePaulo knows them firsthand. A social scientist and leading expert on single life, she is what she calls, “single at heart.†In other words, she’s a single person who is living a joyful, meaningful, fulfilling, psychologically rich and authentic life. As she describes it, those who are single at heart flourish “because they are single, not in spite of being single.†And if you’re solo and reading this, guess what? You can too. A SURGE IN SINGLEHOOD. In recent years, singlehood has become more common. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.4% of U.S. adults are single. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly every other adult aged 18 and up. When you look at it on a household level, roughly 29% of U.S. homes are occupied by one person. That’s up from just 13% in 1960, according to the Census Bureau. The rise in singlehood comes despite a general assumption that everyone wants to be in a committed romantic relationship, DePaulo notes. “That is such a strong message that is promoted so relentlessly in popular culture, in prestige publications, in everyday life, in conversations,†notes DePaulo. “It leaves people who don’t feel that way, questioning themselves and sometimes getting into romantic relationships, even marriages, because they think they should and it’s never going to work for them.†As the number of people who are single has grown, so too has acceptance of singlehood. “When there are more people who are single, there is more resistance to being stigmatized, stereotyped and put down,†says DePaulo. Many of these people, she says are actually meant to live solo. “We live our best lives by staying single. That’s our most joyful and fulfilling life. By pushing everyone into marriage and a conventional couple life, we are standing in the way of human flourishing.†WATCH Your Money Map: A conversation with dr. bella depaulo, author of young at heart. From saving for retirement to health and healthcare cost concerns, aging can be a challenge. Those challenges can be even greater for women who are single. On this episode of “Your Money Map,†host Jean Chatzky sits down with Dr. Bella DePaulo, a leading expert on single life and author of Single at Heart to talk about how single women can best navigate the next chapter to live a life that’s solo and financially secure. THE UPSIDES OF SINGLEHOOD. Singlehood has its upsides, and its downsides. But, let’s highlight the positives first. For starters, as DePaulo describes, singles have for the most part complete financial freedom. “They get to decide how to spend their money, what to spend, about how much to save,†she says. “And they’re not constrained or pressured by a romantic partner, and they are not at risk of being ruined by a romantic partner who might not have much money or might be reckless with money.†Another upside of solo life has to do with our relationships. You might be thinking, wait, aren’t all singles lonely? That couldn’t be further from the truth, says DePaulo. “There’s a lot of research showing that single people are more likely to maintain their connections with other people, whereas there’s research showing that when couples move in together, or when they get married, they become more insular, so they don’t pay as much attention to their friends, they don’t call their parents as much,†she notes. When a relationship is going well, that can be a good thing. But, as DePaulo points out, it becomes a real hurdle when married people lose their spouse or divorce. “They had the one, and now they have the ‘none,’†she adds. THE ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGES OF SOLO LIVING. Many of the disadvantages of singlehood have to do with the way many federal laws and programs offer a financial leg up to those who are married and leave singles out in the cold. One example? Social Security. “I could work side by side with a married colleague,†says DePaulo. “We can be doing the same work for the same number of years. I might even be doing better work. And yet, when my married colleague dies, her benefits can go to her spouse, mine go back into the system. I can’t give my benefits to a lifelong close friend or a sibling or someone who is really important to me, and no one can give those benefits to me,†she explains. Many single people also don’t have the benefit of splitting household bills with someone else, and, as DePaulo points out, there are workplace inequalities, too.
What to do when you feel lonely being single
What to do as a single person
What does single people do
From saving for retirement to health and healthcare cost concerns, aging can be a challenge. Those challenges can be even greater Solo, Secure, and Joyful: How Single People Can Thrive as They Age. From saving for retirement to health and healthcare cost concerns, aging can be a challenge.
ENTER TO THE SITE
Those challenges can be even greater for those who are single. Dr. Bella DePaulo knows them firsthand. A social scientist and leading expert on single life, she is what she calls, “single at heart.†In other words, she’s a single person who is living a joyful, meaningful, fulfilling, psychologically rich and authentic life. As she describes it, those who are single at heart flourish “because they are single, not in spite of being single.†And if you’re solo and reading this, guess what? You can too. A SURGE IN SINGLEHOOD. In recent years, singlehood has become more common. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.4% of U.S. adults are single. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly every other adult aged 18 and up. When you look at it on a household level, roughly 29% of U.S. homes are occupied by one person. That’s up from just 13% in 1960, according to the Census Bureau. The rise in singlehood comes despite a general assumption that everyone wants to be in a committed romantic relationship, DePaulo notes. “That is such a strong message that is promoted so relentlessly in popular culture, in prestige publications, in everyday life, in conversations,†notes DePaulo. “It leaves people who don’t feel that way, questioning themselves and sometimes getting into romantic relationships, even marriages, because they think they should and it’s never going to work for them.†As the number of people who are single has grown, so too has acceptance of singlehood. “When there are more people who are single, there is more resistance to being stigmatized, stereotyped and put down,†says DePaulo. Many of these people, she says are actually meant to live solo. “We live our best lives by staying single. That’s our most joyful and fulfilling life. By pushing everyone into marriage and a conventional couple life, we are standing in the way of human flourishing.†WATCH Your Money Map: A conversation with dr. bella depaulo, author of young at heart. From saving for retirement to health and healthcare cost concerns, aging can be a challenge. Those challenges can be even greater for women who are single. On this episode of “Your Money Map,†host Jean Chatzky sits down with Dr. Bella DePaulo, a leading expert on single life and author of Single at Heart to talk about how single women can best navigate the next chapter to live a life that’s solo and financially secure. THE UPSIDES OF SINGLEHOOD. Singlehood has its upsides, and its downsides. But, let’s highlight the positives first. For starters, as DePaulo describes, singles have for the most part complete financial freedom. “They get to decide how to spend their money, what to spend, about how much to save,†she says. “And they’re not constrained or pressured by a romantic partner, and they are not at risk of being ruined by a romantic partner who might not have much money or might be reckless with money.†Another upside of solo life has to do with our relationships. You might be thinking, wait, aren’t all singles lonely? That couldn’t be further from the truth, says DePaulo. “There’s a lot of research showing that single people are more likely to maintain their connections with other people, whereas there’s research showing that when couples move in together, or when they get married, they become more insular, so they don’t pay as much attention to their friends, they don’t call their parents as much,†she notes. When a relationship is going well, that can be a good thing. But, as DePaulo points out, it becomes a real hurdle when married people lose their spouse or divorce. “They had the one, and now they have the ‘none,’†she adds. THE ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGES OF SOLO LIVING. Many of the disadvantages of singlehood have to do with the way many federal laws and programs offer a financial leg up to those who are married and leave singles out in the cold. One example? Social Security. “I could work side by side with a married colleague,†says DePaulo. “We can be doing the same work for the same number of years. I might even be doing better work. And yet, when my married colleague dies, her benefits can go to her spouse, mine go back into the system. I can’t give my benefits to a lifelong close friend or a sibling or someone who is really important to me, and no one can give those benefits to me,†she explains. Many single people also don’t have the benefit of splitting household bills with someone else, and, as DePaulo points out, there are workplace inequalities, too.
What to do when you feel lonely being single
What to do as a single person
What does single people do