The shelf · Loneliness and solitude
Does How to Be Alone hold up?
How to Be Alone, by Sara Maitland (2014)
A short essay for The School of Life arguing that solitude is valuable and that modern culture wrongly fears it.
The short answer
Its trend is right but has gone further than it says: a quarter of 40-year-old Americans have now never married.
The claims, checked
US men over 40 who never married rose from 6% in 1980 to 16%.
Outdated Pew: 6% of 40-year-olds had never married in 1980, 20% in 2010 and 25% in 2021, with men higher than women.
Evidence: Pew Research Center, 2023