44. The Single long a stock figure in stories, songs and personal ads.
was traditionally someone at the margins of society: a figure of fun, pity or
awe. In the place of withered spinsters and bachelors are people like
Elizabeth de Kergorlay, a 29-year-old Parisian banker who views her independence
and her own apartment as the spoils of professional success. As
the sages would say, we are all ultimately alone. But an increasing number of
Europeans are choosing to be so at an ever earlier age. 45. This isn’t the
stuff of gloomy philosophical meditations, but a fact of Europe’s new economic
landscape, embraced by demographers, real-estate developers and ad executives
alike. 46. The shift away from family life to solo lifestyles, observes
French sociologist, Jean-Claude Kaufmanns, is part of the "irresistible momentum
of individualism" over the last century. 47. The communications
revolution, the shift from a business culture of stability to one of mobility
and the mass entry of women into the workforce have wreaked havoc on Europeans’
private lives. More and more of them are remaining on their own: they’re
living longer, divorcing more and marrying later—if at all. British marriage
rates are the lowest in 160 years of records. INSEE, France’s National Institute
of Statistics, reports that the number of French people living alone doubled
between 1968 and 1990. Europe’s new economic climate has largely
fostered the trend toward independence. 48. The current generation of
home-aloners came of age during Europe’s shift from social democracy to the
sharper, more individualistic climate of American-style capitalism. Raised in an
era of privatization and increased consumer choice, today’s tech-savvy workers
have embraced a free market in love as well as economics. Modern Europeans
are rich enough to afford to live alone, and temperamentally independent enough
to want to do so. A recent poll by the Institute Francois Dominion Publique, the
French affiliate of the Gallup poll, found that 58 percent of French respondents
viewed living alone as a choice, not an obligation. Other European singles
agree. "I’ve always wanted to be free to go on adventures," says Iris Expender,
who lives by herself in Berlin.