Every third week of September, National Singles week is celebrated here in the United States. This holiday was founded in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate singlehood and its growing rate of unmarried Americans.
In 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 124.6 million Americans 16 years or older were single, making up approximately 50.2 percent of our population. That’s a huge number compared to 1950, where only 22 percent of the population was single. Marriage was the norm back then and it was a shame to go through life without a significant other, but now, every two out of three single people have never wed.
Photo by Daniela Alonso.
Although being single still has its misconceptions, most of them have gone away. According to Psychology Today, one misconception includes the idea that married people are happier than single people. However, that is false. Married people show a little increase in happiness only around the time of the wedding, but then they go back to being as happy or unhappy as they were when they were single.
Another misconception on single people according to Psychology Today is that they are made up of mainly divorced people, but about 61 percent of unmarried Americans have been single their whole lives, 24 percent are divorced and 15 percent are widowed. As the years have gone by, the perception of single life has changed drastically, resulting in its high numbers.
“I believe the increase in single people in our nation has a lot to do with how our society has changed,” said Samantha Scott, a student at Texas State. “Technology has evolved our social views have also changed. Women have become more independent. People have become more educated resulting in careers that require a lot more hours than before. Our lives are consumed of many other things now that the majority of people don’t believe marriage and having kids is the most important thing a human can do.”
With more Americans being single nowadays, National Singles week is to be celebrated.
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