Eric Klinenberg on Going Solo

The surprising benefits, to oneself and to society, of living alone

  • By Joseph Stromberg
  • Smithsonian magazine, February 2012, Subscribe
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Eric Klinenberg
According to author Eric Klinenberg, there are more than 32 million people living alone—about 28 percent of all households. (Jocelyn Lee / Institute)

Related Books

Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone

by Eric Klinenberg


In his new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, Eric Klinenberg argues that many people living on their own have richer social lives than other adults. He spoke with Joseph Stromberg.

How did you first get involved in researching this topic?
My first book was about a heat wave in Chicago where more than 700 people died, in 1995, and when I was doing research on the book I learned that one reason so many people died, and also died alone during that disaster, is that so many people were living alone in Chicago everyday. And I hadn’t really known that before. And during the research for that book, I got to spend some time learning about the rise of living alone, and specifically aging alone. And I got interested in the phenomenon, and concerned about the social problem of being alone and also isolated.

So when I finished, I started thinking about a next project that would continue the theme, and I got funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to do a bigger follow up study on living alone and social isolation in American life. When I got deeper into the research, I realized that, in fact, only a small number of people who are living alone are actually isolated, or lonely, and that I was really only looking at a very narrow part of the story. So I decided to expand it outward, and to redefine the issue, so that it’s not just a social problem, but also a social change.

I came to see it as a social experiment, because what I learned, surprisingly, is that until about the 1950s, there was no society in the history of our species that supported large numbers of people living alone. Since then, living alone has become incredibly common, throughout the developed world. Wherever there is affluence, and a welfare state, people use their resources to get places of their own.

How prevalent is living alone in America today?
In 1950, there were about 4 million Americans living alone, a little less than 10% of all households were one-person households. And back then, it was most common in the sprawling Western states, like Alaska, and Montana, and Nevada, because single migrant men went there.

Today, there are more than 32 million people living alone—according to the latest census estimates, 32.7 million—and that’s about 28% of all American households. This is an enormous change. Instead of being most common in the West, it’s now most common in big cities, and it's common in big cities throughout the country. In Seattle, and San Francisco, and Denver, and Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and Chicago, there are between 35 and 45% of the households have just one person. In Manhattan, where I live, about 1 of every 2 households is a one-person household.

It’s amazing. And it would be quite literally unbelievable were it not for the fact that those rates are even lower than the rates of living alone that we see in comparable European cities.

This topic is not typically part of the national dialogue, and in some ways, it’s overlooked. What do you think accounts for that?
That’s a real puzzle for me. Partly, it’s because not everyone who lives alone identifies that way. It doesn’t exist as a social identity. So we do track the number of singles, or unmarried adults, and we know, for instance, that today there are more American adults are single than married, and that hasn’t been true for centuries, but it's true now. So we do talk about that. But we haven’t taken it the next step further, which is to recognize that so many of the unmarried people are living on their own.


In his new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, Eric Klinenberg argues that many people living on their own have richer social lives than other adults. He spoke with Joseph Stromberg.

How did you first get involved in researching this topic?
My first book was about a heat wave in Chicago where more than 700 people died, in 1995, and when I was doing research on the book I learned that one reason so many people died, and also died alone during that disaster, is that so many people were living alone in Chicago everyday. And I hadn’t really known that before. And during the research for that book, I got to spend some time learning about the rise of living alone, and specifically aging alone. And I got interested in the phenomenon, and concerned about the social problem of being alone and also isolated.

So when I finished, I started thinking about a next project that would continue the theme, and I got funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to do a bigger follow up study on living alone and social isolation in American life. When I got deeper into the research, I realized that, in fact, only a small number of people who are living alone are actually isolated, or lonely, and that I was really only looking at a very narrow part of the story. So I decided to expand it outward, and to redefine the issue, so that it’s not just a social problem, but also a social change.

I came to see it as a social experiment, because what I learned, surprisingly, is that until about the 1950s, there was no society in the history of our species that supported large numbers of people living alone. Since then, living alone has become incredibly common, throughout the developed world. Wherever there is affluence, and a welfare state, people use their resources to get places of their own.

How prevalent is living alone in America today?
In 1950, there were about 4 million Americans living alone, a little less than 10% of all households were one-person households. And back then, it was most common in the sprawling Western states, like Alaska, and Montana, and Nevada, because single migrant men went there.

Today, there are more than 32 million people living alone—according to the latest census estimates, 32.7 million—and that’s about 28% of all American households. This is an enormous change. Instead of being most common in the West, it’s now most common in big cities, and it's common in big cities throughout the country. In Seattle, and San Francisco, and Denver, and Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and Chicago, there are between 35 and 45% of the households have just one person. In Manhattan, where I live, about 1 of every 2 households is a one-person household.

It’s amazing. And it would be quite literally unbelievable were it not for the fact that those rates are even lower than the rates of living alone that we see in comparable European cities.

This topic is not typically part of the national dialogue, and in some ways, it’s overlooked. What do you think accounts for that?
That’s a real puzzle for me. Partly, it’s because not everyone who lives alone identifies that way. It doesn’t exist as a social identity. So we do track the number of singles, or unmarried adults, and we know, for instance, that today there are more American adults are single than married, and that hasn’t been true for centuries, but it's true now. So we do talk about that. But we haven’t taken it the next step further, which is to recognize that so many of the unmarried people are living on their own.

What’s surprising about that is that when I did interviews for this book—my research team and I did more than 300 interviews—we learned that basically everyone is connected in some way to a family member or friend who lives on their own. And it’s now so common that it goes unmentioned. But, typically, I think Americans are quite anxious about isolation. We believe in self-reliance, but we also long for community. So when there’s someone in our life who lives alone, we tend to worry that there’s something wrong, that they don’t have what they want or need.

You argue that the widespread assumption that living alone is a negative trend is flawed. What are some benefits you've noticed for people living alone?
Well, one thing is that we need to make a distinction between living alone and being alone, or being isolated, or feeling lonely. These are all different things. In fact, people who live alone tend to spend more time socializing with friends and neighbors than people who are married. So one thing I learned is that living alone is not an entirely solitary experience. It’s generally a quite social one.

The next thing, I would say, is that we live today in a culture of hyperconnection, or overconnection. If we once worried about isolation, today, more and more critics are concerned that we’re overconncted. So in a moment like this, living alone is one way to get a kind of restorative solitude, a solitude that can be productive, because your home can be an oasis from the constant chatter and overwhelming stimulation of the digital urban existence. It doesn’t need to be—you can go home and be just as connected as you are everywhere else. That’s one of the stories of my book—the communications revolution has helped made living alone possible, because it makes it a potentially social experience. Certainly, the people we interviewed said that having a place of their own allowed them to decompress, and not everyone can do that.

What factors are driving this trend?
The first thing to say here is that living alone is expensive, and you simply can’t do it unless you can pay the rent, or afford your own place. But we know that there are many things that we can afford but choose not to do, so it’s not enough to say it’s simply an economic matter.

I would say that the four key drivers that I identified were, first, the rise of women. Women’s massive entry into the labor force during the last half century has meant that more and more women can delay marriage, support themselves, leave a marriage that’s not working for them, and even buy their own home, which is a big trend in the real estate market. Marriage is just not economically necessary for women anymore, and that wasn’t true 50 or 60 years ago.

The next thing is the communications revolution. Today, living alone is not a solitary experience. You can be at home, on your couch, talking on the telephone, or instant messaging, or doing email, or many, many things that we do at home to stay connected. And that certainly was not as easy to do before the 1950s.

The third thing is urbanization, because cities support a kind of subculture of single people who live on their own but want to be out in public with each other. In fact there are neighborhoods in cities throughout this country where single people go to live alone, together, if that makes sense. They can be together living alone. That helps to make being single a much more collective experience.

Finally, the longevity revolution means that today, people are living longer than ever before. But it’s been an uneven revolution, with women living longer than men, most of the time, and often one spouse outlives the other by 5, 10, 20 years or more, which means that there’s a big part of life—the last decades of life—when it’s become quite common for people to age alone.

Listening to you, it reminds me of people that I know, in my own family, who have made similar choices to what you’re describing, especially older people.
That’s the thing—one of the things that’s been so remarkable for me about writing this book is how many people can personally connect to it, and feel that this is an experience that they have been living, and that their family has been living with, without actually naming it. And this is the kind of thing that sociology does very well, which is to help us identify and make sense of a condition that we experience as a personal or private matter, when it fact it’s a public and widely shared one. So I think one of the things I want to do in this book is help to name and identify and understand this social change that has touched all of us.

Since the trend is often thought of as a private matter, you argue that its impact on civic life and politics is overlooked. What are some of its effects in the public sphere?
In the book I argue that the spike of living alone has played a large and overlooked role in revitalizing cities, because singletons are so likely to go out in the world, to be in cafes and restaurants, to volunteer in civic organizations, to attend lectures and concerts, to spend time in parks and other public spaces. They have played a big role in reanimating central cities. People who study cities tend to believe that the way to revitalize cities is to create a better supply of public spaces and amenities.

The book focuses mostly on cities. What is happening in rural places?
People live alone in rural areas as well. We’ve also seen, in recent years, a new spike in living alone in states like North Dakota, that have a lot of migrant workers, so in some ways, it’s kind of a return to older trends. Living alone in a rural area can be much tougher than in a city, and the risks of isolation are greater. There’s not the ability to walk to place where you can see friends and family, and if you lose access to a car, you can be in real trouble. For now, it remains a kind of minority, or rare, phenomenon.

Although the book focused on America, it did allude to this trend in other countries as well. What's happening around the world?
The fastest-rising places are India, China, and Brazil, in terms of the rate of increase. And the places that have, by far, the most people living alone, are the Scandinavian countries. The book ends in Europe, specifically in Stockholm, where more than 50% of the households are one-person households. That’s a shocking statistic, for all of us.

Do you have any thoughts on where this trend might be going?
When the economy got bad, pundits everywhere said that we would all start moving in with each other, and couples would not divorce, young people would move into their parents’ basements. Some of that turned out to be true, but in fact the levels of living alone have gone up since 2008. They’ve gone up, not down, and something similar happened in Japan during the lost decade of the 1980s. So I don’t predict that the current economic situation is going to end this trend. It seems to me that this is a social condition that’s here to stay.

Do you live alone?
Only when I’m traveling. I’m now married with two young children. But in the past I did live alone for a time. It was quite wonderful.


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Comments (40)

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A well-written book by a very intelligent author. Not to sound like a cliche "self-help book fanatic" but the study that Klinenberg conducted on choosing to live a single life really spoke to me, and it helped me realize the benefits of my lifestyle which I used to be embarassed to tell people about, but am not anymore.

Posted by Ryan on September 23,2012 | 02:57 AM

Just started reading this book and so far I'm shocked at how closely it relates to my life and the lives of my peers. I still feel like there's a "stigma" on single people, especially for women. Not that men are excluded from this kind of judgment, but I constantly hear girls my age putting down single girls who can't find a husband by age 30. They assume it's because those girls are either "undesirable" or just plain crazy to not want a husband and kids. Of course I would never argue that EVERYONE should be living alone, but a great benefit about this new trend in America which not a lot of people are mentioning is that it's a perfect method of Population Control. Finally we have a realistic way of tackling the overgrowing population problem without it being morally or ethically controversial in the eyes of the public (eg. Abstinence vs. Sex Ed., Birth Control, Abortions, etc...).

Posted by Nathan on August 28,2012 | 04:27 PM

I'm not sure if it's a societal issue or cultural, but many seem concerned about my marital status. The older I get I prefer my own space. I have met many women and we're friends. I was married once and that was a disaster. One thing that still strikes me funny is that I told my family and some relatives about a woman friend and they bother me for her and me to marry. The woman doesn't want me to feel pressured to get married. Although I am rather surprised at one time my older sibling phoned while I'm out with my friends to go out and meet women, and then gave the strange advice to pressure my friend to marry me. We had a heated argument about why one does NOT pressure another to get married.

Posted by sam on April 28,2012 | 06:15 PM

I have lived alone for the better part of 15 years and I actually prefer being single. I was a teenage mother in my younger years, and after a messy divorce and my daughter leaving for college in my 30's, I decided to go it alone. I really didn't expect that I would be "going it alone" quite this long. But now I feel fortunate to have taken this path for myself. Today, I enjoy my independence, I have many things to fill my life, I have a large number of true friends and have a meaningful, purposeful job that I love. There are many stimulating things in life besides being with a significant other, although that was a pleasant experience as well. There are pitfalls in either area-being single or as a spouse. I could make positive arguments on both sides, and negative arguments on both sides. I think it comes down to choice. When is it when I feel most fulfilled? When I am single or when I am married or committed? I chose to be single. If I wanted a relationship I would be in one. I think more people are preferring to be single. I teach chemical dependency and social work at a community college. There is a fair amount of dysfunction in our societies households' which may be a contributing factor for people choosing to be single, as it may be easier then dealing with dysfunction. The rules do not apply compared to 60 years ago. They have changed based on many components of living that did not exist in their entirety as they do today. Our world has changed.

Posted by Mary Kay Riendeau on April 26,2012 | 03:10 AM

Finally, a view that doesn't equate the single life with loneliness or loss. When you are lucky enough to live on your own after sharing your life first with your parents, then roommates and finally a spouse, you learn to treasure all the things that that lifestyle brings. Those who have posted have mentioned the small joy in eating whatever and whenever you please. Popcorn for dinner? No problem. Momofuku's crack pie made from an internet recipe and shared with friends at an everyone-bring-something dinner? Wonderful! There is a lot to be said for living as you please - no one to tell you how to think and act, no one to accommodate, no compromises to be made. I have lived alone for most of the last 30 years and often feel a sense of pure bliss. I realize that there are many reasons for this, not just the fact that I am a singleton. Great friends and family, loving pets, a house full of books and music - all these things contribute. It is just nice to know that I am part of a growing trend of people finding their own way to happiness.

Posted by sandra vitrano on April 20,2012 | 01:20 AM

I think living alone is hard, I lived alone unmarried/no real boyfriend, for about 10 years in my mid 30's early 40s. I was lonely. I cried alot, broken hearted about some recent boyfriend. I did finally meet a guy and marry and now live with him and our baby boy, and am more happy, also more tired. Now I have lots of problems, but not that longing for family. That longing is so painful. Loneliness is a really tough problem. When you live alone you have to HUSTLE--constantly trying to create community, which is really positive, but exhausting. This "living alone" thing is not all bad, but DEFINITELY not all good. Its hard, its painful. . I lived alone because I could afford it, and at 35, I felt i must be too old for "roommates". I didn't live alone because I wanted to. I think it would be awesome for 30somethings to realize others need roomates, to live together, and then they would have really nice place... like the lushest place in town, if its two older yuppies. I think there should be a 'loneliness rate' just like unemployment rate, to let the nation know how we're doing. I actually think when the economy went bad in 2007, the loneliness rate went down!! I think people need each other.

Posted by not living alone anymore on April 18,2012 | 04:46 PM

I was excited to read about this situation of living alone which I have chosen for myself. I agree that I fit into the four characteristics that Klinenberg discusses. I am 68 and retired except for part time work I have done for 50 years, working at SF Giants baseball games. I live in inner city San Francisco where I have spent most of my life. I do visit many friends and some family with whom I am well-connected. I have been a teacher and many of my connections are with former colleagues and students who like me still live in the Mission District. I am connected to the Latino community which is very connecting all by itself. I use public transportation except for out of city travel. Mygh son and older daughter live in the city and I see them often though I wouldn't want to share living space with them as they are also alone and like it that way. Our habits are so different. I play cards with friends, go to the many cultural outlets in the City, read a lot (including Smithsonian magazine) belong to a stamp and a coin club, watch a lot of documentary shows and movies on TV, take time to talk to and visit my 7 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter most of whom live distances away. My health is good and I drive to Sacramento once a week to see my excutor who also helpes me with legal and personal matters about once a week. My life is very full and living solo makes it possible for me to share time with all of them. I even have a few friends left from childhood that I spend time talking to or visiting. My life is very full. My next reading project--reading Going Solo by Klinenberg I just reserved at the public library withing walking distance from my house. Oh yes I also walk about one mile+ every day.-- WGraff

Posted by william graff on April 2,2012 | 11:34 AM

Thank you for choosing to focus on this subject which helps to describe my life as I am now living and loving it! Twice married, I remarried seven years after the death of my first husband and divorced five years later. Now single and living alone on my own for the first time in my adult life, ( I am 60) I cannot imagine living any other way. I simply love living alone and doing my life solo. My life is rich and quite full, so much so that at times it is tough fitting it all the things I've discovered that I enjoy. What I most enjoy about my life alone is that I get to do it on my own terms as I choose to, based on what my needs are at any given time. The solitude that living alone affords me works well for me in my spiritual formation practices in a way that living with others did not allow. I have also found it less challenging to make dietary changes and develop healthier lifestyle habits being by myself than living with someone else .While I am open to meeting someone and exploring possibilities for a shared life, I must admit that living together is no longer an option for me. I simply love my life alone!

Posted by Jeannette on March 8,2012 | 03:06 PM

Thank you for this article. I am excited to see the number of single person households. I had no idea.

I love living alone. I've had the opportunity to get a housemate, but always got cold feet. This is my refuge place where I can relax and unwind and do whatever I want. I'm divorced, my kids are grown. Except for the first 9 months of being an empty-nester, I've been blissfully happy.

Mean-spirited people ask me, "Don't you worry about who will care for you when you get old?" I just smile. Most women in America outlive their husbands and die alone anyway, so worry about your life, not about mine.

Posted by GJW on March 6,2012 | 12:15 AM

What a great article. I've been living alone for the last 13 years,I lost my partner of 16 years in 1999. I've dated and tried in getting another partner to share my life. Perhaps I was too picky and trying to find somenone like my last relationship with Tom. I have learned to live alone and like it,I have great friends and family. I just adopted a little chichuca and terrier mix from the local animal rescue center,that little guy gives so much love. At time it does gets lonely,but I am grateful for having a safe quiet apartment, good health and sanity. I see so much pain and sadness, people who are homeless and just having such hard times. I was raised to give and help those who are in need. Eric's book clearly shows that living alone does not have to be a lonely and sad exsistence.

Posted by David Del Rosario on February 28,2012 | 12:30 AM

Great article, it gives voice to what I'm learning after 2 marriages and lots of relationships have failed. (I'm no good at being married.)

I love living alone. The benefits not covered in this article: if you wake up in the middle of the night and want a cheeseburger, fry it up. Nobody will awaken and complain about the smell. Eaten a big bowl of beans for dinner, same thing. I go and come as I please. I never need privacy. No one is observing my behavior. I get to laugh out loud when I have amusing thoughts and there's no explaining. If I need to feel I'm connected to other human beings, I find a rich experience on the internet, and I feel it now with all the other people I didn't know, (before I read this article, are happy flying solo). Good to know you're out there and happy. Carry on...

Posted by Doug on February 22,2012 | 06:34 PM

Oh Paleeze! People who have never experienced the isolation of the elderly, in small towns, where our present economic hardships limit us so that we cannot relocate, travel, or even afford a computer, should not be writing books!
I see constant despair, resignation, and inability to change one's future grind into the souls of these people. To be young with a steady income doesn't always help, but at least there is mobility.
When one is elderly, in poor health, in "closed" communities of which Judy Eggart writes in her comment, there is nothing "revitalizing" occurring here. There is anger, and a feeling of betrayal.
There are people who through no fault of their own find themselves isolated without recourse. Where's the authoring of that reality?

Posted by J Kaiser on February 21,2012 | 07:17 PM

I'm in my late 40s and married, but my husband and I (a 20+ year relationship) live in separate apartments in the same apartment building. We are child-free by choice and live frugally on moderate incomes. We live in a major city and have extremely active social lives. We generally get two distinct reactions when sharing our story with people...

- Some think our marriage must be deeply flawed. "Are they both closeted homosexuals? ...in an open marriage? ...have some sort of agreement of convenience?" No, no and no.

- Others think we have the ultimate marriage. They say things like "I'd love to live apart from my spouse! I don't want to divorce them, I just don't want to see them 24/7!"

I think I'm just living a lifestyle that is decades ahead of its time. I cherish my husband, but I cherish living solo just as much.

Posted by happily married but living solo on February 14,2012 | 07:15 PM

I am 70 and began living alone for the first time in my life eight years ago after a divorce. I was scared, felt a little lost and rejected the offers of well-meaning friends to fix me up with someone. I didn't then or now want to be romantically involved with anyone, but I did want to learn how to live alone with resourcefulness and purpose.

Even as I treasure the time I spend with my children and grandchildren, I came to see that I needed to start building my own new life. I still work as a freelance writer at home, but have enough flexible time for friends and exploring new hobbies. Who knew the trials of growing grass could be so challenging, as well as new-found friends at the County Extension Agency so informative and helpful?

I still haven't mastered eating out alone, and going to parties alone sometimes takes courage. I have, however, conquered the dreaded, most lonely time between 5:30 -7:00 p.m. by plugging into a long-time hobby of cooking that has resulted in trying new recipes most evenings.

I look at people living alone differently now. Before, I assumed "alone" meant "lonely" and I never saw it as a choice, but more as something life had forced on them. Now, after eight years of living alone with just my dog, I realize that I wouldn't want it any other way.

Posted by Marilyn Allen on February 13,2012 | 04:06 PM



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