Overview

The paper suggests that although a traditional major theme from social scientists and the popular media has been that marriage is the goal of most people in a society at some point in their lives, there has always been a proportion of people who remain single. This number is increasing together with the number of those people who become single through death, divorce or separation. The author defines the various groups which constitute singlehood and discusses major reasons why people may be single, and the problems of and adjustment to singlehood.

This paper was given at a staff seminar at the Institute of Family Studies in June 1982.

AIFS Discussion Paper No 8