The shelf · Australia
Does One hold up?
One: Valuing the Single Life, by Clare Payne (2018)
An argument that single adults' contributions to families and communities go unrecognised.
The short answer
Its household figure holds; its figure for adults swaps households for people.
The claims, checked
One quarter of all households in Australia are single-person households.
Holds 25.6% at the 2021 Census, about 26% on the Bureau's adjusted estimate.
Evidence: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2024
A quarter of adults are single.
Does not hold At the 2021 Census 41.9% of people aged 15 and over were neither in a registered nor a de facto marriage. A quarter is the share of households with one person.