Long-term changes in the characteristics of one-person households in Sweden, 1960-2018

Today, more people than ever live in one-person households (OPHs). Sweden’s OPH population started to grow in the 1960s, and today the country has one of the highest proportions in the world, reaching almost 40% of all households. However, despite an internationally high share of OPHs, little is known about the longterm changes in the Swedish OPH population’s composition. By utilizing register data covering the entire Swedish population at 5year intervals the current study elucidate changes in the demographic characteristics and socioeconomic status (SES) of the working-age (30–64) OPH population from 1960 to 2018. Our findings show that there have been substantial changes over time in the associations between gender, civil-status and SES and the probability of living alone. A sharp increase in divorce rates in the 1970s was an important driver in the increased share of OPHs in working-age, especially for men aged 30–45 years. We also found a shift in the trends of associations between SES and the probability of living alone, from a positive to a negative association for women and an increasingly negative association for men. Today, low-SES men and women in Sweden are increasingly selected into OPHs, and the SES patterns across the sexes have converged.