The Demography of Singlehood: Duration, Typology, and Cohort Change

Ariane Ophir , Centre for Demographic Studies (CED)

Family demographers have rigorously investigated the changing nature of family formation, documenting persistent delay and complexity while overlooking singlehood. Existing scholarship focuses on the timing of (first) union formation and changes in living arrangements. However, this approach overlooks the dynamic and complex nature of singlehood shaped by the second demographic transition and treats singlehood as an “invisible” static state. This paper conceptualizes singlehood as a multidimensional and dynamic state. This paper takes a necessary step toward a systematic and empirical Demography of Singlehood that conceptualizes singlehood as a multidimensional and dynamic state. Applying a novel life course approach and sequence analysis to compare British and American women, I ask two questions: 1) what is the duration of singlehood? and 2) what is the typology of singlehood? I answer these questions using detailed relationship histories for women born between 1945 and 1984 from the British UKHLS and the American NSFG (NNSFG=14,562, NUKHLS=14,605). I distinguish among different definitions of singlehood between ages 18 and 30. The results show that younger birth cohorts are not necessarily single for longer if we focus on partnerships rather than marriage, i.e., younger women are unmarried for a longer time but not unpartnered for a longer time than older birth cohorts. Furthermore, the results show five distinct singlehood trajectory profiles and more cohort change in the US than in the UK. Taken together, the paper demonstrates both stability and change in “singlehood” and the necessity of a life course approach to understanding cohort change in singlehood scholarship.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 19. Trajectories of Singlehood