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The home-alone phenomenon is a trend At present，The Single is no longer what he or she was in the past. Those days are gone. 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. Scooting around Paris in her Golf GTI, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching her cell phone, de Kergorlay pauses between calls to rave about life alone. “I’m not antisocial,” she says. “I love people. But living alone gives me the time and space for self-reflection. I’ve got the choice and the privacy to grow as a human being.” An increasing number of Europeans are choosing to be so at an ever earlier age. 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. they’re living longer, divorcing more and marrying later — if at all.The home-alone phenomenon remains an urban and a Northern European trend, single-person households will outnumber families and couples within a decade in Britain in 2010. About half of all households are people living alone in London’s tonier neighborhoods. Europe’s new economic climate has largely fostered the trend toward independence. 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. European singles viewed living alone as a choice, not an obligation. the newest crop of singles are high earners in their 30s and 40s who increasingly view living alone as a lifestyle choice. Now, young people want to live alone, They were young, beautiful. The booming economy means people are working harder than ever, The singles have always done what they wanted to do: live a self-determined life. A self-determined life doesn’t come cheap,but the government supported their. Such freedom that live alone can be addictive, particularly for women. Women may give up getting married in order to hsve her freedom . Millions of singles yearning for escape zones or solitude are straining Europe’s city housing market. Singles to the house needs promoted the development of the european economic. Women, it seems, enjoy singledom more than men do. Those in New Economy careers like media, advertising or information technology who rent “The Matrix” and reaching for a lager is a much-needed escape. The peace and quiet is such a luxury for those in New Economy careers. Living alone doesn’t mean living without romance, Living alone together committed couples opt for separate residences. Married types who have bickered once too often about toothpaste caps or dust bunnies are opting to live apart in peace rather than together in stress. The move from cozy families to urban singledom opens new vistas for marketers. In the past, the holy grail for advertisers was the couple with 2.3 children. No longer, argues Scase. Today’s companies should think of high-earning singles as a key market. Gone are the days of the clamorous family gathered around a table groaning with home-cooked food. A third of Britons eat dinner alone at least four times a week — and prefer eating alone to eating with others, according to a British National Opinion Poll. Small wonder that Britain’s market for ready-made convenience foods has doubled in the last five years. A host of other singles services have sprung up, from dogwalkers to alarm systems to agencies that will water your plants or bring you aspirin and coffee when you’re hung over. Compact cars and mobile phones, the major props of modern European city life, have solid markets among European singles. Bouygues Telecom / France Telecom estimates that a hefty percentage of cell-phone users are young home-aloners; a quarter of Smart cars, tiny vehicles designed for city driving, are sold to twenty- and thirty-something singles who “churn” or change partners instead of settling down. It’s a marketing man’s dream: a demographic with the anxieties of teenagers and the bank accounts of the middle-aged. Instead of saving for their kids’ college education, the home-aloners are prepared to fork out on personal-fitness trainers, seaweed cellulite wraps and stiletto heels. “You have to be concerned about presenting yourself if you live in a more mobile society,” says Scase. “Appearance is no longer a young person’s concern. And [singles] have the money to spend on it.” Living alone may bring freedom, but not necessarily buoyant health or better sex. A recent Dutch study of 19,000 people found chronic disease was 30 percent higher among singles. Married people are healthier, because they smoke and drink less. Single and divorced people are more likely to commit suicide and have liver disease, diabetes or lung cancer. Singledom as a portal to sublime sex doesn’t hold. Life can get even tougher as home-aloners age. Once retired, work’s not there to provide a steady income or social life. Bad health and fear of crime can turn freedom into frightening solitude.for example, In Sweden, groups of individuals have started about 50 co-housing projects designed for singles or couples in the second half of their lives. At Fardknappen, a state-built group home in Stockholm for people “in the second half of life,” the feel is less that of an old person’s home than a college dorm, with its buzzing modems, cheeky political cartoons and blue-jeaned, sandal-shod residents. Nightly group dinners aren’t mandatory, though people do have to pitch in and cook for a week every two months. The fusion of independence and community for older people has proved popular: the seventy-year old group has waiting list of 75, and visitors from Japan and the United States tramp through to learn about the Swedish method of aging gracefully. “Living like this enables old people to have freedom,” explains Mette Kjorstad, a divorcee who moved to Fardknappen after her two kids left home. “And it’s a great relief for people’s children — they’re free of a lot of guilt.” Guilt-free families? Now that’s a sign of a seismic societal shift if ever there was one. 本文来源：https://www.dywdw.cn/1021705e312b3169a451a4fc.html
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2023-09-30
