A Life-Course Approach to Singlehood

Aart C. Liefbroer , Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)

Demography has a blind spot for the topic of singlehood. This partially results from the multifaceted nature of the concept. It can mean multiple things, like never married, living alone, not living with a partner, not having someone that one considers a partner, and more. It also results from demographers’ fascination with events, like starting a partner relationship and ending it. Particularly little attention is given to singlehood during the life phase in which the establishment of a family, including living with a partner and parenthood, are often considered the norm, that is between the ages of 30 and 50. This paper aims to contribute to establishing a life-course approach to singlehood by answering four questions: 1. How common is singlehood between the ages of 30 and 50? 2. How much time – on average – is spent in singlehood between the ages of 30 and 50? 3. What kind of different patterns of singlehood can be distinguished between the ages of 30 and 50? 4. How much diversity exists in these patterns, between men and women, between people from different socioeconomic classes, between cohorts and between European countries? These questions will be answered with data from European countries, participating in the GGS and FFS. Respondents aged 50 and over will be selected, and their singlehood trajectories up till age 50 will be reconstructed. Singlehood will be operationalized as the time spent not living with a partner. Regression and sequence analytical tools will be used to analyze the data.

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 Presented in Session 19. Trajectories of Singlehood