Happy Singlehood by Elyakim Kislev

Singlehood is on the rise and marriage is in retreat. This trend is not only Western but global, occurring even in the most traditional and family-centric cultures. In a few European countries, slightly more than half of the 18+ population is currently unmarried. Solo living is likewise becoming more popular; in many major Western cities, the most common household size is one. There is a growing gap among urban populations between the household and social structures that are seen as mainstream and the structures that are common in practice.

The Rise of Singlehood

Singlehood is advancing in many directions at once. The age at first marriage is rising, divorce rates are high, unofficial cohabitation is becoming more popular, longer lifespans often mean longer widowhoods, and a growing (but still small) share of people never marry at all. There are many reasons for these trends and for their global reach. Rather than actively defying culture, people are largely responding pragmatically to the incentives and threats of an urbanizing and industralizing world.

Reduced fertility rates. Relative to agrarian societies, urban people consistently have a smaller notion of the ideal family size; it’s usually two children per couple. A smaller target number of children plus the rising availability of fertility treatments mean that it’s not necessary to start child-rearing at a young age. It therefore becomes more feasible to punt coupling, marriage, and children further into the future. Living as a single parent is likewise more feasible with a small number of children than with a large number.

Uncoupling of marriage and livelihood. Marriage decisions have historically been driven heavily by economic considerations, specifically access to the other family’s business and resources. Family and business have become less intertwined since modern institutions offer lots of non-family sources of things like capital, credit, insurance, aid, and technical know-how. Economic self-sufficiency continues to culturally be seen as a prerequisite for marriage, especially for men, though women are likewise increasingly also waiting until their careers are established. With modern jobs being increasingly high-skill and requiring more years of education, the age at which this self-sufficiency is reached is rising, further leading to delays in marriage. The irony of the stability-before-marriage approach is that once someone is economically independent, most of the economic pressure that would encourage marriage is now gone. Rather than being complementary, business and family increasingly feel like competing spheres of life and marriage increasingly feels like a career impediment. Despite the pooling of resources theoretically allowing more risk tolerance, married people are more conservative in practice in their career choices, becoming less likely than singles to take jobs involving relocation, business travel, or unpredictable income.

Divorce risk aversion. When divorce rates rise, singles become more risk-averse, especially women and those from lower economic classes. The social and emotional scope of marriage has grown in recent decades, making the choice of partner a more emotionally high-stakes decision. Given the threat landscape, singles are raising their standards (sometimes to unreasonable levels), vetting prospective partners for longer, increasingly cohabiting before marriage, increasingly cohabiting indefinitely, and increasingly refusing to invest so much in one person at all.

Gender imbalances. Many dating pools have skewed gender ratios, leading to intense competition and lots of leftover singles. Most notably in India and China, a cultural preference for male children has led to a large national surplus of men. International immigrants heavily skew male and they usually have difficulty finding mates in their host countries; their own ethnic group is usually male-heavy where they live, whereas searching outside one’s ethnic group is a low-success-rate strategy in general. In contrast, internal migrants skew female; most major cities in the West have far more single college-educated women than single college-educated men.

Incompatibility of values. Urban societies are inevitably more diverse and therefore more tolerant and less conformist. As societies become more affluent, they place a greater premium on personal choice, fulfillment, and self-expression, and less on piety, security, obedience, and responsibility. Singles from cultures with harsh demands regarding coupling and marriage (eg the expectation of large bride prices or dowries) are increasingly aware that these are not universal cultural practices, are increasingly independent from their extended families due to economic shifts, and are therefore more willing to defy their culture by cohabiting unofficially or looking outside their ethnic group. Everywhere in the world, young women are more liberal, more feminist, and more individualistic than their parents. Men have changed less, and in some places (most notably the Arab world), anti-feminist backlashes have led to a generation of young men who are more conservative than their fathers. Many prospective pairings therefore have irreconcilable ideas about gender roles in marriage.

Housing. Improved home technology has made it more feasible than ever to live as a one-person household. This is the first time in history that solitude and privacy are realistically attainable, and housing market data suggests people are willing to pay a lot for the privilege. Even as the economic scope of marriage has fallen, people continue to couple up as a way to split housing costs and household labor. However, there are more immediate and low-risk ways of getting these same benefits, including living with friends or with non-spousal family members; such arrangements are rising in popularity. Due to urban space constraints, much of the recent housing growth in cities has been in smaller units in higher-amenity communities. Such layouts make solo living more convenient and economically viable while also discouraging the formation of larger households.

Bad Reasons for Marrying

Across the full population, the unmarried are less happy than the married by about 0.7 points on a self-reported 1-10 happiness scale. About half of the gap appears to be selection bias and reverse causality; happier people are more likely to get married and more likely to stay married. The other half of the gap is driven entirely by divorced and widowed singles. The married and the never-married have similar levels of happiness and life satisfaction, while the divorced and widowed are below them. Marriage appears to only cause a happiness bump for the first few years before reverting to the pre-marriage level, whereas the happiness slump following separation or a partner’s death appears to be more enduring.

On the surface, the stats suggest that cultural fears of staying single may be overblown and that the risk aversion observed in modern singles is justified. Especially when marriage is motivated by the pursuit of validation, acceptance, security, or closure, the promised benefits may not appear and the marriage is likely to be of low quality.

Avoidance of abandonment in old age. A vague fear of being alone in old age is a major motivator for marriage, especially among young people. Young people significantly overestimate the magnitude and totality of disability they will experience in old age, most commonly assuming they’ll experience every possible health problem rather than a subset. They also overlook the fact that their spouse is going to be old at the same time and may end up needing more of their care than the other way around. Divorces are common after the onset of unemployment or long-term disability, right at the time when the more independent spouse realizes their insurance plan has backfired and turned them into a caregiver. Even among those who marry and never split, half will outlive their partners, potentially for a long time. Elderly singles have always used a wide variety of housing, social, and care arrangements; this is currently a highly dynamic and turbulent area. It’s worth noting that elderly singles largely do not see marriage as a lifestyle solution and are less interested in marriage than any other age group.

Avoidance of stigma. There is a universal cultural stigma against singles, even among singles themselves and even when singles are the majority. The unmarried are universally viewed as less trustworthy, mature, and socially-adjusted than the married. Marriage done in the name of social acceptance often backfires, since cultures with stronger stigmas against the never-married also usually have stronger stigmas against the divorced. Cultural pressure to marry is strong among young singles but tends to decline with age. Most long-term singles experience a constructive growth journey by untangling the external and internal sources of their drive to couple up and by building an authentic identity that is independent of their relationships. Many lifelong singles start off identifying as single-by-circumstance but eventually embrace life as single-by-choice, generally ending up happier as a whole.

Avoidance of loneliness. The married perform no better than the unmarried on self-reports of loneliness. Single people tend to have broader social networks and stronger relationships with friends, extended family, neighbors, and coworkers. Due to the recent inflation in marriage’s social scope, married people increasingly neglect their non-spousal relationships, only to later find themselves with no one to turn to when their marriages encounter problems. Married people often go on to regret neglecting their non-marital relationships, and these are usually the first relationships that formerly-married people try rebuilding when their marriages end.

Happines in Singlehood

About one quarter of today’s young people will never marry, about half of the remainder can expect to divorce, and about half of that remainder can expect to become widows. Very few people today will avoid an extended stint of singlehood sometime in adulthood. Marriage is not a magic pill for the problems of singlehood and not a way to permanently dodge these problems. Happiness while single is the strongest known predictor of happiness in marriage.

Unmarried people mostly do not live up to the stereotypes and are fully capable of being happy and socially-engaged. The happiest singles are those who maintain a wide set of familial and non-familial relationships, with the relationships together serving a wide variety of purposes. The happiest singles are those who carve out time for recreation, participate in communities beyond family and work, take care of their health, pursue hobbies, work careers in areas they regard as meaningful and intrinsically motivating, and live by non-materialistic values. Many singles who have built satisfying single lives have low interest in adding a romantic relationship on top, especially given these relationships’ high demands for time and emotional bandwidth.

The same lifestyle factors that make singles happy also improve the happiness of those who are married. The rise of “greedy marriage” has been harmful mainly because it leads married people to go all-in on their marriage and to abandon the things that made them happy while single. Whether or not it lasts forever, happy singlehood is a project worth pursuing.