More people 50 and over are living alone
Mary Felder, 65, raised her children, now grown, in her row house in Philadelphia. Her home has plenty of space for one person, but upkeep on the centuryold house is expensive.
Felder is a member of one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups: people 50 and older who live alone.
In 1960, just 13 percent of U.S. households had a single occupant. But that figure has risen steadily, and today it is approaching 30 percent. For households headed by someone 50 or older, that figure is 36 percent.
Nearly 26 million Americans 50 or older now live alone, up from 15 million in 2000. Older people have always been more likely than others to live by themselves, and now that age group — baby boomers and Gen Xers — makes up a bigger share of the population than at any time in the nation’s history.
The trend has also been driven by changes in attitudes surrounding gender and marriage. People 50-plus today are more likely than earlier generations to be divorced, separated or never married.
Women in this category have had opportunities for professional advancement, homeownership and financial independence that were all but out of reach for previous generations of older women. More than 60 percent of older adults living by themselves are female.
“There is this huge, kind of explosive social and demographic change happening,” said Markus Schafer, a sociologist at Baylor University who studies older populations.
In interviews, many older adults said they feel positively about their lives.
But while many people in their 50s and 60s thrive living solo, research is unequivocal that people aging alone experience worse physical and mental health outcomes and shorter lifespans.
Compounding the challenge of living solo, a growing share of older adults — about 1 in 6 Americans 55 and older — do not have children, raising questions about how elder care will be managed in the coming decades.
“What will happen to this cohort?” Schafer asked. “Can they continue to find other supports that compensate for living alone?”
Living solo in homes with three or more bedrooms sounds like a luxury, but, experts said, it is a trend driven less by personal choice than by the nation’s limited housing supply. Because of zoning and construction limitations in many cities and towns, there is a nationwide shortage of homes below 1,400 square feet, which has driven up the cost of the smaller units, according to research from Freddie Mac.
This has made it more difficult for older Americans to downsize, as a large, aging house can often command less than what a single adult needs to establish a new, smaller home and pay for their living and health care expenses in retirement.
The constraints are especially severe for many older Black Americans, for whom the legacy of redlining and segregation has meant that homeownership has not generated as much wealth. The percentage of people living alone in large houses is highest in many low-income, historically Black neighborhoods. In those areas, many homes are owned by single, older women.
One of them is Felder, of Strawberry Mansion, a neighborhood in Philadelphia. She and her ex-husband bought their two-story brick row house in the mid-1990s for a song after it was damaged in a fire.
While raising three children, Felder worked a series of jobs, including retail, hotel housekeeping and airport security. She retired in 2008 and has lived by herself for more than a decade, although her sisters, children and grandchildren live nearby.
But in September, living alone became harder.
While she was cleaning the trash out of a nearby alley with neighbors, a masked gunman looked her in the eyes and shot her twice in the legs.
Felder has no clue who shot her, and there has been no arrest. She recovered at her daughter’s home across town, where the ground floor has a bedroom and bathroom, unlike in her own house.
By late November, she was feeling much better — physically, if not mentally, she said. But she had not stayed overnight in her own home. She is still a little afraid.
“But I’m working on it,” she said. “I really love my house.”