There is a demographic trend of which HR personnel, management, business owners, and CEOs need to be aware. According to demographic trends analyst, Cheryl Russell, by the year 2005, the most common household in the US will be single-person households. “Never before in American history has living alone been the predominant lifestyle,” says Russell, and the time is fast approaching.
According to the American Association for Single people (http://www.singlesrights.com/main.html), the 2000 UC Census reported that 82 million men and women in the United States are unmarried. This figure includes nearly 20 million adults who are divorced, 13.6 million who are widowed, and more than 48 million
who have never married.
· More than 48% of all households in the nation are headed by
unmarried individuals.
· About 40% of the workforce is unmarried.
· Approximately 36% of people who voted in the last national election were unmarried.
· About 27 million Americans live alone, while about 2 million adults live with an unmarried partner.
The Census Bureau has projected that between the ages of 15 and 85, the average man and woman will experience more years being unmarried than they will being married.
According to this data, a huge and growing population is choosing to be alone. If you define adults as those over 18, 44% of US adults – that’s nearly half — are singles.
Of the 18 to 24 age group, 85.9% are single. This is a very substantial change from a generation ago, and this is the group that will be coming your way!
The American Association for Single People (AASP) projects that by 2010, 47.2% of the adults over the age of 18 will be unmarried.
If we assume that this trend continues, and Cheryl Russell is not the only one who thinks it will, what will this mean to the workplace?
First of all, there will be increasing pressure for economic, political, corporate, and legal reforms to accommodate this shift to unmarried adults. cheap electric bicycles