Forget the tired tropes about the “spinster” or the “cat lady” – as it turns out, single women are living longer, happier lives despite the negativity associated with these stereotypes. According to data from the Pew Research Center, nearly 40% of adults in the U.S. are single, up from 29% in 1990, and approximately half are not interested in a relationship or even dating. The Time.com article from 2023 discussing the study also points out that research on happiness throughout history hasn’t traditionally included single people, instead focusing on married couples. But in recent years that has begun to change, leading us to learn some quite profound and even shocking statistics about life outcomes for single people.
Scientific evidence now shows that unmarried and childless women are the happiest subgroup in the population. And they are more likely to live longer than their married and child-rearing peers. This being the case, perhaps society has been looking at singledom incorrectly all along.
One expert who has not only made studying singledom her life’s work, but also her lived experience, is Dr. Bella DePaulo, author of the book ‘Single At Heart: The Power, Freedom and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life‘.
Dr. DePaula challenges the notion that single life is something people settle for, and shows that for millions, in every part of the world, being unpartnered is the key to their most joyful, fulfilling, authentic, and psychologically rich life. Those people are “single at heart.” Using survey data from more than 20,000 people from more than 100 different countries, DePaulo shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, those who embrace single life grow happier as they age and are better situated to navigate old age than those who built their lives around romantic relationships.
Drawing on more than three decades of social science research, and her own experience as a 70-year-old woman happily single her entire life, DePaulo – a Harvard-educated professor and researcher whose Ted Talk on the appeal of staying single has had more that 1.7 million views – paints a bold and groundbreaking picture of the myriad benefits of investing in your single life: single people have the freedom to travel and live how and where they want. They typically experience stronger friendships that have been prioritized over the years, report lower rates of loneliness at all ages, and have more time to commit to their communities and causes. They can enjoy intimacy on their own terms and understand that love encompasses far more than just romantic relationships. They’re thrilled not to be part of the 50 percent of married folks who split, or are stuck in bad marriages, or even those who are in good marriages.
While empowering and celebrating the consciously uncoupled, SINGLE AT HEART defangs some of the most negative stereotypes by sharing the life stories of people around the globe who are living the best versions of their lives by staying single. It also supports readers of all genders, ages, and backgrounds who are Single at Heart and advises on topics as diverse as solitude, freedom, intimacy, children, and societal pressure.
With the changing trends and attitudes around singledom, we had the chance to chat one-on-one with Dr. DePaulo about her fascinating insights, why more people are embracing the single life, and what she hopes readers – both single and partnered – can learn from ‘Single At Heart’.
First, can you tell us the driving force behind your book – what made you want to write it?
My book, Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life, does something that no other book about single people has ever done—it recognizes and celebrates people who love being single and want to stay single. The “single at heart” are people who are happy and flourishing because they are single, not in spite of it. Single life is their best life – their most joyful, meaningful, fulfilling, and authentic life. The risk to them is not what they would miss if they did not put a romantic partner at the center of their life, but what they would miss if they did. They would not get to be who they really are.
Other books about single people—even the ones that seem at first to be conveying a positive message about being single—often end up being rather grudging about the matter. For example, they tell single people how to be happy while they are looking for The One, rather than recognizing that some people are already happy while single and are not looking for The One. Sometimes the authors say that they are happily single, but they still want to find a romantic partner. Some are married.
I’m 70, I have always been single, and I always will be, because I love being single. I wrote Single at Heart to validate people like me and to help other people understand who we are and why we find single life so enriching.
You have been drawing on decades of research for your book about this topic. What were some of the most fascinating aspects you found?
- The single at heart love having time to themselves. They don’t worry about being lonely; in fact, their appreciation for alone time protects them from being lonely.
- Even though the single at heart cherish the time they have to themselves, they also enjoy their time with other people. In fact, they tend to be more connected to more different people than people in romantic couples are. Couples have The One, but the single at heart often have The Ones.
- Single people who are not looking for a romantic partner are happier than single people who want to be coupled.
- Single people who are not looking for a romantic partner become even happier with their single lives as they grow older, a 10-year study of more than 17,000 adults has shown.
- Single people who are not looking for a partner are more sexually satisfied than those who are looking for a partner, and they are about as satisfied as coupled people, a study of more than 24,000 adults has shown.
- Single people who are not looking for a partner value their friends more. As they continue to invest in their friends, they become even more delighted with their single lives, a study of nearly 6,000 single and divorced people has shown.
- Even more men than women are single at heart. Despite all the current hand-wringing about the supposedly sad state of today’s single men, these men are single and flourishing.
What were the biggest gendered differences in attitudes toward men that are single, vs women?
When I ask other people about this, one of the first things they will point to are the words we use for single men and single women. Doesn’t “bachelor” sound a lot less pathetic than “spinster”? Don’t people feel sorry for single women, while seeing single men as happily sowing their wild oats? There’s something to that, and yet I think that single men are really getting bashed these days.
They are often seen as immature incels and interested in nothing but video games. These are all cheap, inaccurate stereotypes. To be single at heart is to be a particularly mature and psychologically healthy person. You are living your life fully, joyfully, and authentically. One of my most surprising findings was that men are even more likely to be single at heart than women are.
Was there any research around non-binary, trans or other members of the queer community in the research you found? And if not, why do you think singledom has not been studied among the queer community as much?
Yes, I did find some very interesting things in my own survey data. My online survey, “Are you single at heart,” has been answered by more than 20,000 people from more than 100 nations. What I found is that people who are single at heart are less likely to be heterosexual than people who are not single at heart. Among people who were clearly not single at heart, 90 percent were heterosexual. Of those who clearly were single at heart, 72 percent were heterosexual. (My survey was not a representative national sample, so these numbers are best regarded as approximations. But you can trust the overall gist of the results—the single at heart are less likely to be heterosexual.)
Here’s another relevant finding from my survey. Of those who were clearly not single at heart, 3 percent were asexual. Of those who clearly were single at heart, 12 percent were asexual.
Even though it is 2024, there are still very pervasive negative ideas around especially women being single – the “spinster”, the cat lady, the trope of the unfulfilled woman who chooses not to marry or have kids. Why do you think these ideas still exist?
I think the psychology behind the demeaning of single women is different today than it was, say, in the 1950s. Back then, just about everyone got married and stayed married. Many women were teenagers when they first married! I think many people really did believe that single women were unfulfilled. Now, I think most people realize, at some level, that single women can have fulfilling lives. And many more women stay single longer, or even for life.
That’s a threat to people who are invested in believing that only by marrying can you be truly happy. They want it to be true that marriage transforms a sad, lonely single person into a blissfully happy married person. It is not just married people who want to believe this; many single people would also like it to be true that if they just find The One and commit to that person, they really will live happily ever after. Not like those sad single people.
When more and more women choose to stay single, and live happy and fulfilling lives, that’s a threat to the belief system that says that cannot happen. So people put down single women. In fact, there is research showing that people are more judgmental about single women who are happily single than those who wish they were romantically coupled. The single women who want to be part of a couple are upholding the popular belief system that says that everyone wants to be coupled, and only by being coupled can you be truly happy.
There is now data to show women who remain single actually live longer and are happier than women who do marry and have children. What can you tell us about these insights, and how the aforementioned norms/stereotypes play a role in this?
There’s a wonderful Australian study; it is not about longevity, but it does address many other ways that single women with no children are flourishing—and contrary to stereotypes of what it is like to be a single woman in later life, these women were in their 70s. Here’s what I said about the study in Single at Heart:
“An Australian study of more than ten thousand women in their seventies found that the lifelong single women were not just doing better than the previously married women, they were also doing better than the currently married women. Compared to the currently or previously married women, with or without children, the lifelong single women who had no children were the most optimistic, least stressed, most altruistic, and had the fewest diagnoses of major illnesses.”
Can you share any of your own personal anecdotes and experiences as to why you wanted to study this topic and become an advocate for the single life?
The personal experience that hit me the hardest is the one I described at the end of the introduction to Single at Heart:
For the first forty-five years of my life, my mother never said a word about my single status. In the seven years she lived after my father died, we occasionally traveled together, just the two of us, and we spent some holidays together. We talked about a lot of things, but she never pressured me to marry, not even subtly. I was proud of that. I thought it meant that she could see that staying single wasn’t an issue for me. I never complained about it, collected bridal magazines, or mused dreamily about some future prince. I had an engaging career. In Charlottesville, where I taught at the University of Virginia for several decades, I owned a home that I loved. I’ve always had close friends, and she met many of them.
In the last conversation I had alone with her, as she lay dying, she brought up my single life for the first time. “I worry about you,” she said.
I don’t remember what I said in response, but I do remember that I was stunned and saddened. I wish she had understood that for me, and the millions like me, staying single was how I stayed happy and fulfilled. I wish I knew then what I know now and could have helped her to understand. I wish I had already written this book.
What kind of pushback have you received by putting your work out there – in media, on the TEDx platform, in written articles and now in your book?
Some of the pushback is just cruel trolling. In the last chapter of Single at Heart, I shared an example of an email I got that ended with this: “You suck because you’re single. Say it out loud. You are nothing. Worthless.”
Other examples of pushback seem to have more benign motivations, even if they are misguided. One comment that comes up fairly often is that if too many people stay single, that would spell the end of civilization. Those kinds of comments are confusing being single with not having kids. But plenty of single people have kids.
Also common is an insistence that people who marry, or become part of a committed romantic couple, really are happier, healthier, and just better people. That’s not just any old belief; it is a worldview that a lot of people are deeply invested in. They want it to be true. It is hard to dissuade them with data.
What are some ways we can shift our thinking about family, community and building community in a way that doesn’t demonize single people?
For the single at heart, single life isn’t a limited life, it is a more expansive life. One of the reasons that’s true is that the single at heart have more expansive, open-hearted understandings of family, relationships, intimacy, and love. Family, to the single at heart, is more than just the people who are conventionally regarded as family; family can also include the people we choose to regard as family, such as close friends.
To the single at heart, love encompasses far more than just romantic love. Intimacy can include sexual intimacy, but it also includes emotional intimacy. Relationships include more than just romantic relationships; we can have fulfilling relationships with friends, relatives, teammates, colleagues, mentors, spiritual figures, and even pets. This more generous way of thinking can be a template for greater inclusiveness and respect.
Something else people can do—especially political candidates and political leaders—is to use more inclusive language. Political leaders like to boast about how much they care about “children and families;” so they don’t care about single people who don’t have kids? They also like to talk about what they are doing for “working families.” Well, employers do not hire families, and if they did, it would be a disaster—2-year-olds are notoriously terrible employees. Why don’t they talk about what they are doing for workers instead of working families?
How do societal expectations of women in general play a role in the backlash or demonization of single child-free women?
Societal expectations are the standard against which single, child-free women are judged. Because women are expected to be married with children, anyone who is not is at risk of being demonized. Expectations about women’s roles are emotionally charged. It is not like expecting it to be sunny and then it turns out to rain. That’s disappointing but trivial. A lot of people are deeply invested in their belief that all women should get married and have children. When women don’t comply, the reaction can be brutal.
What do you hope readers, both single and partnered folks, will gain from reading “Single at Heart”?
Here’s what I said about that on p. 3 of Single at Heart:
“In the enlightened world that I envision, every child will understand, as a matter of course, that living single is a life path that can be just as joyful and fulfilling as any other—and for some people, the best path of all. Every adult will forsake forever the temptation to pity or patronize people who are single, and will instead appreciate the profound rewards of single life. Adults who are naturally drawn to single life will not be asked to defend that choice ever again. Millions of happy single people will realize that they are happy and thriving not in spite of being single, but because of it.”
As she describes, Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard) has always been single and always will be. The Atlantic calls her “America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience.” She is the author of Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life. Her TEDx Talk, “What no one ever told you about people who are single,” has been viewed more than 1.7 million times, and you can watch it below. You can learn more about her at her website, www.BellaDePaulo.com. Follow Dr. DePaulo on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
