Singlehood, stigma and emotional well-being among professional women in Bogotá, Colombia

Singlehood among professional women remains under-researched in Latin America, where gender norms and family expectations are shaped by distinct sociocultural contexts. This study examines how single professional women aged 30 to 55 in Bogotá, Colombia, experience and make sense of being single. Using a phenomenological and interpretive approach, we conducted three focus groups (n = 13) and combined deductive and inductive thematic analysis. Singlehood emerged as an emotionally significant and fundamentally ambivalent condition, structured by a tension between personal autonomy and gendered social pressure, and understood by participants both as a personal choice and as a socially marked status. Distress arose less from the absence of a partner than from stigma, social surveillance and heteronormative expectations, while autonomy, meaningful solitude and non-romantic bonds sustained well-being. Age shaped these experiences: older participants described greater acceptance, stronger personal resources and a reorientation towards personal and professional fulfilment. Situated at the intersection of professionalisation, kinship expectations, class and gender, the study’s findings complicate assumptions about single women’s experience drawn largely from Euro-American scholarship. Mental health practice and policy should address stigma, support relational networks and strengthen women’s agency while acknowledging the persistence of these social pressures.