The New American Majority of Single Adults and the Impact on Housing

By Ryan Dosen

 

The number of single American adults has been rising for years and singles now make up more than half of the American adult population for the first time ever. Depending on your perspective, this increasing tendency toward a more solitary existence could be a cause for concern or a positive sign of societal evolution. Regardless of viewpoint, the shift has been in the works for years and it is not likely to change course. All we can do is take a look at the implications of our new society, where it is now the norm to be alone, or shall we say, independent.

 

Yardeni and Single America

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that in 1976 only 37.4 percent of Americans that were 16 years or older were single. The number of single Americans has been steadily climbing ever since, and now 124.6 million Americans, or 50.2 percent of Americans aged 16 years or older, are now single. This jump from about a third to more than half adult Americans being single signals an interesting and important change in the way our society should be viewed.

Economist Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research Inc., recently released a report entitled “Selfies,” calling the shift “remarkable.” Yardeni says that an increasingly single America has “implications for our economy, society and politics.” He says that singles, especially young singles, are more likely to rent and less likely to have children. Not having children obviously impacts how much money those individuals have to spend and on what things their money is spent.

Yardeni goes further to argue that the increase in single-person households will widen the income inequality gap in the U.S. “While they have less household earnings than married people,” Yardeni says, “they also have fewer expenses, especially if there are no children in their households.”

 

Societal Causes and Implications of a Single America

Eric Klinenberg of The New York Times says that “the decision to live alone is common in diverse cultures whenever it is economically feasible. Although Americans pride themselves on their self-reliance and culture of individualism, Germany, France and Britain have a greater proportion of one-person households than the United States, as does Japan.” Klinenberg says that living alone no longer conjures feelings of “anxiety, dread, and visions of loneliness…. Now the most privileged people on earth use their resources to separate from one another, to buy privacy and personal space.” He says that living alone “promotes freedom, personal control and self-realization—all prized aspects of contemporary life.”

Tim Worstall of Forbes matter-of-factly points to the economic liberation of women as a cause for an increasingly single America, opining that “with economic freedom obviously there’s less reason to shackle oneself to a man so one can eat.”

 

Effect on Housing

Whatever the cause, the effect on housing of a single America is that there should be a need for even more housing. Unless America decides to go Friends and have all of these progressive, single, liberated, and independent individuals living under one roof in communes like Ross and Joey and Chandler, we will need more homes.

Yardeni says that an increasingly single America will boost rentals. This may be true. But it is also probably true that people will not want to stop owning their own home. Assuming that the American dream of home ownership is not the next vestigial element of our psyche to be dropped along our evolutionary paths, homes will be even more in demand to accommodate the increasing percentages of people choosing to remain single.

 

Crazy Guy on a Soapbox

As a married man and father of two young boys, I’ll admit that privacy and personal space are distant, sometimes pleasant memories. That said, a Klinenbergian separation from my family and loved ones is the last thing that I would ever want, and it is certainly not something that would have me scrambling for resources in order to make a reality. Quite to the contrary. I would spend every last dime of my money to keep my wife at my side and my sons attached to my hip, and I certainly do not consider myself a devolved Neanderthal for making these important others, and not myself, my first priority.

This trend toward a more self-centered and less family-oriented existence is alarming and unsettling to me, while it is admittedly refreshing to others. In the sense that people are becoming empowered to live their lives the way they want, as opposed to having to settle for an unhappy existence with another (for survival or due to societal or familial pressure to be married), the trend has to be a positive one. In the sense that people may be becoming more self-important and obsessed with their own reflections, I would argue that it’s not such a great thing. Narcissus died admiring himself. But it would appear that I am yelling into the wind.

 

— Ryan Dosen manages The Wayne Megill Real Estate Team of Keller Williams Brandywine Valley in West Chester. Contact Ryan Dosen for buyer or seller representation or for more perspective on the local and national real estate market by emailing rdosen@megillhomes.com or calling 610-399-0338. Please also visit The Wayne Megill Team blog at www.PAHomesAndRealEstate.com.