New U.S. census data shows that for the first time ever adults living alone outnumber parents living with kids as the most common household type. From 1990 to 2000, the number of single-person households grew by 21.4 percent and for people ages 35 to 64, a whopping 45 percent.
What’s going on? Is being married with children no longer the goal? Is the Wall Street Journal right that America has a “demographic bulge of lonely souls”? Or is something different going on here?
Hear from experts on who those 27 million sole occupants are and the causes and consequences of so many grown-ups being on their own.
Guests:
William Frey, research professor, population studies center at the University of Michigan and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Bella DePaulo, social psychologist and visiting professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her forthcoming book is “Singled Out.”
Sue Shellenbarger, creator and writer of the Wall Street Journal’s “Work & Family” column and “The Breaking Point: How Female Midlife Crisis is Transforming Today’s Women.”
Meghan Daum, essayist and novelist. Her op-ed, “Demography and the Single Girl” appeared in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times.
