Lately, millions of Canadians are unpartnered. Business and tech companies are rushing to meet the needs of the new me-market. For Valentine’s Day, we’re asking: “Is this actually a great time to be single?”
Lately, millions of Canadians are unpartnered. Business and tech companies are rushing to meet the needs of the new me-market. For Valentine’s Day, we’re asking: “Is this actually a great time to be single?”
Our guest, Yuthika Girme, is the director of SECURE, the Singlehood Experiences and Complexities Underlying Relationships Lab, at Simon Fraser University. She joins Lately to unpack anti-single prejudice, the four archetypes of singletons, and explains how this growing demographic is shaping a new ‘solo economy.’
Also, Vass and Katrina refuse to share their cake.
Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where the Globe’s online culture reporter Samantha Edwards unpacks more of the latest in business and technology.
Find the transcript of today’s episode here.
We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to lately@globeandmail.com.
Vass Bednar: I'm Vass Bednar and I host this Globe and Mail podcast, Lately.
Katrina Onstad: And I'm Katrina Onstad, the show's executive producer.
Vass Bednar: I don't know if you could say this at the workplace anymore, but happy Valentine's Day, Katrina.
Katrina Onstad: Yes, happy Valentine's Day to you, too. Or as your economist friends call it, happy, an artificial demand spike for greeting cards and chocolate Day.
Vass Bednar: And flowers, where are the flowers... you're so cynical. It's interesting to observe the eye rolls that Valentine's Day does invite. Right. It's so, so kind of cheesy and contrived now. And I feel like maybe it used to be sexier and more romantic and maybe now there's more rebellion around its various kind of consumptive cliches, except for cinnamon hearts, which are the best candy of all time.
Katrina Onstad: Hard no. No. No, You're. You're completely wrong about that. It's so disgusting. But for our listeners who share this Anti-valentine's Day vibe, just wait nine months. There's an alternative holiday just for you. Just hang on and go to China, because on November 11th, it's Singles Day. Right. This started in 2009. It's interesting as kind of Valentine's Day counterprogramming, the celebration of solo life. It spread to a few other countries. I don't think it's really taken off here yet, but in China it's a huge sales event. It's actually a bigger online shopping day there than Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So we're going to play an ad from discount airline Jetstar that targets Asian fires. And picture this, big waves, romantic restaurants, very vacationing. Here we go.
Ad voiceover: It's moments like these. That I will cherish for a lifetime. Nothing beats that feeling I get. When I travel solo. I can rejoice in the exact moment when I know I am making memories that will last a lifetime. I can spend my time indulging in all my favorite dessert. Who said anything about sharing? Your solo adventure awaits. This singles day.
Katrina Onstad: Down with sharing! Solo travel! Yeah, I'd go.
Vass Bednar: I mean, you just don't want to share your cake with anyone. No. The euphoria of doing something alone. I totally get it. And singles are shaping a world. Reshaping a world that's finally starting to recognize this massive demographic shift. And Asia is setting the pace here, right? The average household size is shrinking. And in Canada, at the last census, it was found there were over 18 million single people. More adults in Canada are single than are in relationships right now. Their existence has created what's been called the solo economy. And companies are totally cashing in. Right. Not just through products like single serving foods, but tailoring experiences to people that are doing something again, solo. There's these travel packages that we've seen and even ad campaigns, right? Instead of framing Singledom as some sort of deficit. We've seen campaigns that are tapping into self-love, independence, friendship and personal growth instead of traditional, you know, quote unquote, romance.
Katrina Onstad: Right? Like buy your own ring, have your own chocolate. So, yes, I think this is true. There's a ongoing decades long stigmatization of being single. But on the other hand, the world still feels very much built for couples and families. There is the so-called single tax rate, just a phrase used to denote how much more expensive it is in our society to live alone, like higher costs, especially now with inflation, food and especially especially rent. Right? Plus, we have a country with a lot of policies that cater to traditional families, like federally protected parental leave, but other kinds of leaves. If you're a person without a family, it's much harder to obtain leave from work. And this election season, politicians will say that they're focused on helping families. But it's not that often that you hear them targeting this massive demographic of singles actually in their campaign promises.
Vass Bednar: That's fair. I mean, even if you're single, you're still part of a family. You just maybe haven't started a family of your own. So you could be caring for someone who's elderly in your family or less able. A lot of policies are income tested now in Canada and do account for whether a household is dual income or not. So I know to me it kind of seems like it's a pretty good time to be single. And plus we're so enmeshed with tech, even though we're critical of it. I wonder, like even if you live alone, are you really able to be alone when friends and communities are just a few clicks away.
Katrina Onstad: Doing research for this episode we were kind of delighted to see one stereotype upended, which is that, you know, single people are miserable and in fact, it turns out that on partnered people can have very high levels of happiness. And the reason is kind of cool because they might be more inclined to turn outward and have stronger social ties. And that's the opposite of what's been called a greedy marriage. I love that phrase. We all know these people. Maybe we are these people that once they couple up, they turn inward, they lose their friends. And these broader social connections are obviously the key to happiness. And single people can be very good at cultivating those connections. That's what makes you happy. Not cinnamon hearts.
Vass Bednar: Cinnamon hearts could still be a part of that happiness.
Katrina Onstad: No.
Vass Bednar: Look, all of this is very much at the heart of the research portfolio of the expert we are chatting with today, Dr. Yuthika Girme. Her research broadly assesses when and for whom intimate relationships and singlehood foster greater well-being. She's an associate professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University. And she's the director of the Singlehood Experiences and Complexities Underlying relationships research shop.We talked to her about this new rise of the solo economy. This is lately.
Vass Bednar: Hi Yuthika, welcome to Lately.
Yuthika Girme: Hi Vass Thank you so much for having me.
Vass Bednar: So I've creeped you a little bit online in my research. Totally research purposes only. And it seems like you're not single anymore. But I was wondering if you ever felt like you were treated differently when you were single.
Yuthika Girme: I always try and kind of make this point that we are all born single. Least romantically. So. Right. And so regardless of what your current status is, I think everyone has sort of been in situations in which they are single and may have experienced what we like to call a single ism or discrimination. For me, when I experienced single asylum or sort of negative treatment around singlehood, it often had to do with social situations in which my single status was really salient. And I will give you one example. Yes, And it was I was traveling by myself and I was in the bi and I decided to go on like a safari hot air balloon ride. And it was this really cool experience. But I remember getting into this hot air balloon and kind of looking around me and realizing I am the only solo traveler in this hot air balloon ride. Everyone else was there but their romantic partner. A lot of couples on their honeymoon, a lot of couples traveling together, a lot of older couples sort of empty nesters. And it was interesting because I don't think anyone ever treated me any differently in that situation, but it just made it really salient that I was the only single person in the room or and the hot air balloon.
Vass Bednar: Well, listen, you may have been single, but you were bouncing around in a hot air balloon seeking out adventure and feeling brave. I love that. I love it because it just doesn't match up with these historical kind of stereotypes of the average single person. Right. And I think for women, for you and I, it's probably the spinster trope, right? Whereas for guys, it's typically the more suave bachelor. Do you think that kind of imagery has been enduring or has it changed over time?
Yuthika Girme: Yeah. And our grandmothers would never have been able to imagine a life in which they can own their own credit card or be able to buy a house without having a husband. So I think historically things have shifted that allow some people, particularly those who may come from marginalized identities, to be able to obtain a lifestyle without requiring a romantic partner. And I think the idea of sort of this like gendered element to singlehood is something that's been really of interest to us in our lab and the research that we conduct. So in one particular study, what we did is we asked people like, what are some of the characteristics that you think of when you think of a single woman versus a single man. And we essentially found four archetypes of single people. And these were largely consistent, regardless of people were describing a single woman or single man. So, for example, we had the professional archetype. So these were our hardworking, independent, career driven singles. We had our carefree archetype. These were our carefree, open minded, really free spirited, single individuals.
Vass Bednar: The fun one.
Yuthika Girme: Yeah. With fun one. The one who's taking hot air balloon rides. Yes. And then we had a heartless archetype. These were people that were anti committal. They didn't want to commit to a relationship. They might be sort of seen as promiscuous and emotionally unavailable and cold. And then we had our loner archetype. These were single individuals who were seen as being lonely, antisocial, a bit awkward. And yes, they were some sort of gendered nuances. So, for example, promiscuous came up a lot as a negative stereotype. Right. And there were some words, pardon my language that came up for single women around being a slut or a skank. But for single men, the words might have been clear. Well, stunned. So there were some areas where we kind of saw some of that nuance, similar with the loner archetype for women. We sort of saw antisocial Freja, the better. But for single men, we saw, like, sloppy, immature. So there were some minor gendered nuances there. But on the whole, we didn't find a whole lot of differences.
Vass Bednar: So as a researcher, how do you define singlehood? And do you have a sense of in Canada, how many people are are single right now? I'm asking for a friend, by the way.
Yuthika Girme: Of course. I think most broadly, people define singlehood as simply not being involved in a romantic relationship at the current time. So this can include people who are never married and not currently romantically dating anybody. But it can also include people who have reentered singlehood later in life after being involved in a relationship. And of course, singlehood can also include people who opt out of romantic relationships altogether. So there's a really wide spectrum of what is considered singlehood and single status. But what we do know is that the numbers are fairly large. So among younger individuals, let's say between 20 and 35, singlehood can be upwards of 60% of the adult population. But even among people later in life, we still see rates of singlehood in sort of 20 to 30% at times. It's interesting because I don't think that singlehood is just about young adults being single, but it's a life phase that a lot of people are experiencing across the lifespan.
Vass Bednar: What do you think's catalyzing that shift across ages?
Yuthika Girme: There's a lot of different things, I think, that have changed societally. I think one thing is that among younger adults, people are delaying romantic, committed relationships to pursue their personal aspirations, their career, hobbies, travel, all sorts of sort of more independent autonomous associated activities. But also with things like the deinstitutionalization of marriage, with the stigmatization of divorce, you have a lot of people later in life also choosing to exert romantic relationships that they're not fully happy with. And the relatively smaller part of the population who just choose to opt out of romantic relationships altogether. We're seeing a rise in that because now more than ever, you don't necessarily have to be in a romantic relationship in order to obtain financial independence. Own a home, live comfortably.
Vass Bednar: Okay. So you mentioned people getting married later and the reasons for that shift over a generation or two. The fact that rates of coupling are declining has been described as the relationship recession. And I was wondering what you thought about the role of technology in this shift. Right? How tech has altered the single experience overall. I'm also thinking about dating apps like you could make an argument that apps have made dating almost too transactional, and it's just so easy to sort of say thank you. No swipe, swipe, swipe. Maybe people just aren't willing to tolerate differences or imperfections or just kind of explore different partners. Does anything like that come up for you in your research?
Yuthika Girme: Yeah, I definitely think you're describing what the research suggests. And listen, I think that online dating apps have been tremendously helpful for a lot of people in that they helped widen the net. You know, the fishing net for people who are looking for a romantic partner. At the same time, what it has done is, as you said, giving people so much choice that we don't know what to do with that kind of information. And it's not really how our brains were evolved to evaluate people. So we grew up, you know, dealing with individuals face to face and smaller tight knit communities. And historically, people would couple with individuals who lived in a very small radius from where they live. And now with globalization and online apps, we're finding that it's just broadened the pool to such an extent. This illusion that the grass is always going to be greener on the other side. And if this one person has a flaw. People might be more willing to kind of search for something better. So I think all of these kinds of components just make dating a little bit more difficult. And so I don't think that the rising rates of singlehood are purely because people are saying, I want to forgo romantic relationships altogether. Most of the times what it is, is people are saying, I want to prioritize singlehood right now. And eventually, I do want to be in a romantic relationship. And when people kind of get to that point, they're finding it difficult to actually date.
Vass Bednar: I also wonder about the flipside of that in that if getting your sexual needs met is one of the elements that make people in relationships happier overall than maybe apps and toys can and do help meet that need and increase the happiness of single people who are making that choice or priority, as you said, in that way. Could hookup apps make single life more appealing?
Yuthika Girme: Yeah, 100%. Sexual needs are really important for people, and I think with the sexual revolution and feminist revolution that has happened in society, it's more acceptable to engage in sexual acts outside of the context of a committed relationships or marriage. And so what that's done is that it's delaying needing to get into a committed relationship because people are able to be single and still have their sexual needs met. And keep in mind that also getting their emotional needs met because we have lots of important close others in our lives family, friends, community colleagues, neighbors. So it's not that single individuals are devoid of all those emotional relatedness needs either. And there's been some really great work by Human Park Jeff McDonald, who showed that when single individuals are able to meet their sexual needs, that they're actually really happy being single and they desire a romantic partner less.
Vass Bednar: Well, there's also this big shift on dating apps towards non-monogamy. Right. You've seen dedicated apps like Field with Two Ease, No Eye or non-monogamous filters on OkCupid and elsewhere. Do you think being exposed to different types of relationships stigmatizes singlehood or makes it more common? Like I'm wondering how are these things intertwined?
Yuthika Girme: Yeah. That's really interesting. I think with singlehood and consensual and ethical non-monogamy, the big thing here is seeing more examples of people living this way in society. Right. Like through social media, through movies and TV programing or just people writing blogs, sharing their lifestyle on.
Vass Bednar: Thank you, Bridget Jones. Right.
Yuthika Girme: Exactly. And it's like having the language and having good examples of how people can live more authentically in a positive way that people feel empowered to. It's really big because if you don't have those examples, it becomes really difficult to know A if that's acceptable and be able to model that kind of positive lifestyle. We're seeing a rise in both of these lifestyles because we're we're talking about it more. So I think that's like a really powerful thing for people.
Vass Bednar: Let's talk a little bit more about how single people are doing. You mentioned happiness, so I want to chat about that first. And I also want to touch on economics. But I suspect those things are also intertwined. What do we know about single people and their welfare?
Yuthika Girme: So don't shoot the messenger. But on average, what we find in the literature is that single people tend to report lower life satisfaction, happiness, psychological well-being, as well as physical health compared to people who are coupled. Now, unfortunately, I think a lot of the historical research looked at that finding and said, yeah, makes sense. And basically didn't think to ask why those effects were occurring. What we do in our research is to really try and understand why. What are the actual risk factors that might be associated with some single people experiencing costly outcomes? And also what might be the factors that predict when some single people are actually really happy with being single and are thriving in singlehood. So I'll give you an example of one study that we had done.
Vass Bednar: Sure. I love that.
Yuthika Girme: Yeah, it's a little bit of scientific detail, but essentially we looked at a nationally representative sample of single and coupled adults, as well as a large sample of single and coupled adults. And what we found is that, yes, on average, single individuals did report lower life satisfaction compared to coupled people. But this effect was at least partially explained by the fact that single people tended to report being less supported by friends and family compared to coupled people. And that they experienced more discrimination and negative treatment due to their single status compared to coupled people. This was really interesting research to us because it suggests that some single people might indeed have lower life satisfaction, but that might not necessarily have to do with the fact that they are themselves lonely, miserable, insecure or whatever, but instead that it's because of the way they're being treated by their social network.
Vass Bednar: So being single doesn't necessarily mean that you're unhappy. We also saw some research recently from the University of Toronto suggesting that women are happier when they're single, but men aren't when they're single. Of course, that's a very kind of hetero context. Do you think the same thing is happening there in terms of that happiness differential?
Yuthika Girme: I do. So essentially for some people, if you are very well connected to your social network and community, then of course singlehood is going to be associated with positive outcomes. Whereas for other people who really struggle in terms of having a supportive, you know, family network, friendship network, they find singlehood is going to actually be a risk factor for things like loneliness and life satisfaction. And so the effects about gender are interesting because single women do tend to be better well connected socially compared to single men. And I think that that is one of the potential mechanisms that explain those results for why it is that single women tend to do better than single men, is that they actually have support from friends and family. And sure, they might be experiencing some discrimination as well. But they have the support network that's required to buffer some of those negative effects.
Vass Bednar: What about financially single people? Do they tend to be less well-off?
Yuthika Girme: I think the answer does tend to be yes. Single individuals have lower levels of income compared to couple. People are less likely to get into the housing market compared to coupled people. It's not that single people aren't capable of all of those things. Instead, there might be institutional practices that make those steps easier for coupled people compared to single individuals.
Vass Bednar: Right.
Yuthika Girme: And I have friends who, when they were trying to get a mortgage approval to buy a house, they had a lot of trouble because banks just wouldn't approve a mortgage as a single individual.
Vass Bednar: So annoying.
Yuthika Girme: Yeah, it is. And it's I mean, that's just straight out discrimination. These were individuals that had good paying jobs. They had saved and built up the deposit for a house that they wanted to buy. But because they were single, the bank basically saw them as like a risky investment. And we see stories like this in terms of lots of different contexts, like even rental housing. As a single person, if you want to rent, you're less likely to get. Offered that rental compared to if a couple wanted to rent.
Vass Bednar: Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah.
Yuthika Girme: And it's I mean, so they've been experimental studies that show that that is a bias that people have. And so these kinds of biases are they occur at an institutional level and they can really undermine the extent to which single people can obtain financial resources or investments and things like that.
Vass Bednar: I want to zoom out and talk more about what's being called the solo economy. It's a term that arose to describe a class of people in Asia, actually, where there's a big population boom in single person households in Asia Pacific countries, and the market response has given rise to these solo experiences. So not just the hot air balloon, but, you know, in Japan, you and I could go book a karaoke room for one and a solo barbecue. Restaurants with many grills are popping up across big cities. I wondered if you've seen similar trends where the market may be meeting the needs and the wants actually of singles in Canada.
Yuthika Girme: The closest thing that I came to hearing about anything like this was actually in Toronto, where there was a solo dining experience at I think it was a woman restaurant, like a Japanese ramen restaurant, where, as you mentioned, people can go and dine solo and the entire restaurant are specifically for that experience. So if you want to go with your friends, you can go, but you all have to sit in your own individual booth and sort of reconvene later.
Vass Bednar: I love alone put together activities sometimes, you know.
Yuthika Girme: I mean, I think they are really important. And what I do like about them is that they're great. Like for anyone, you know, like even if you're coupled or married, I think it's still like important to have that me time. So I think it's great to have these kinds of things, but I haven't seen as much of an uptick in that in North American society. I think in North America there's still very much the sort of idea that romantic relationships and marriage are on a pedestal, and that's something that people really aspire to.
Vass Bednar: Yeah, I was reading about golfing alone, and I was trying to look for statistics on going to amusement parks alone because I thought you can really have an advantage as a as a person. You can really skip the line at an amusement park.
Yuthika Girme: Fame if you go skiing and snowboarding because they often have singles lines and you can kind of get through the crowds.
Vass Bednar: Nice. I wanted to talk about this growth and influencers and that positioning on social media where there can be an almost endless stream of relationship advice out there to right kind of at everyone's fingertips. So making dating decisions can also be very participatory. And I wondered if you had any thoughts about how this could affect our romantic expectations?
Yuthika Girme: Yeah. So we did a study where we asked people, for example, the extent to which they think that people have to be in a relationship to be truly happy and fulfilled in life. We call this relationship pedestal beliefs. And interestingly, what we found is that when people endorsed relationship pedestal beliefs, it actually made them more fearful of being single, which undermined their life satisfaction. And we found the same thing even for people who were already in a relationship. So even if you were already in a relationship and you thought that relationships were really important for happiness and fulfillment, it made people fearful of losing their partner and being single, which undermined their relationship satisfaction. And so I think this is a really interesting thing here because too much emphasis on a romantic relationship can also be bad. And it's really trying to find like, what's the midpoint here or what's the balance? And I think we really need to try and emphasize how can people be happy single? Because as I said, we're all born single. And regardless of whether people choose to get into relationships or not, that is our sort of starting point. And so being a single person, being more secure, making sure you have like a really strong foundation in terms of your family and friendship support. I think these are all really great things for people to focus on because if they want to remain single, those things are going to be important for having a fulfilling single life. But if you do want to be in a relationship, having all of that foundation means you're probably going to be making better dating decisions When you kind of do get into that element of trying to figure out who you want to be in a relationship with.
Vass Bednar: We're also seeing people just do more stuff alone. Right. Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. He recently published an article that was called The Antisocial Century, and he was reporting on this growth in solo activities, some of which we were talking about earlier, just less socializing overall, more solitary leisure. And he cited that Americans spend even more time alone in 2023 than they did in 2021. Now that research defines a person as being alone. If they are the only person in the room, even if they're on their phone or in front of a computer, which I do think is important to think about. Being alone is not necessarily the same thing as being single. But what's the correlation there?
Yuthika Girme: Yeah. Being single doesn't mean being alone. There's a lot of research suggesting that single people actually spend a lot of time with friends, family, community members really expanding their sense of self. But it is interesting. This digital age means that we might be physically alone. And it's almost like you're outsourcing your social connection to online relationships. And we see this having potentially a detrimental impact regardless of whether people are saying. Coupled, because what we're missing are those more casual encounters with people in person, as well as sort of the more deep and meaningful ones that you can have when you're discussing something or engaging in activity with a friend or family member or partner in person as opposed to online.
Vass Bednar: Absolutely. I wanted to talk about companion technologies with you because I was wondering how things like virtual assistance, delivery services or subscription models might help to streamline life for people who are living solo, maybe making it seem like there's more of a team around them, right? Managing that household or taking on some of that work. How does this change the experience of single life?
Yuthika Girme: I think having assisted technology to kind of help with some of that household labor could really be a relief to lots of single people who live solo at the same time. I don't think it alleviates any of the emotional labor involved. So the single person is still the one having to to do and take on all that emotional labor. Whereas in a living situation where you get to share that with someone, you can kind of say, well, this person is in charge of meal prep or this person is in charge of getting all the groceries and planning that out. Right. In a way that I don't think our technology and our A.I. systems have really caught up yet. But single people still have to carry a lot of that emotional labor.
Vass Bednar: Someone has to turn the Roomba on.
Yuthika Girme: Exactly. Exactly.
Vass Bednar: To charge the Roomba. Right.
Yuthika Girme: And set it all up.
Vass Bednar: And pay for it.
Yuthika Girme: And pay.
Vass Bednar: For. And read the manual. Yeah. I'm tired already.
Yuthika Girme: And I mean, it's interesting because I've. I've even been seeing some, like, interesting chatter about A.I. getting piped into online dating apps. So even your dating decisions are going to get eventually outsourced. So we'll see. It's an interesting time to be alive.
Vass Bednar: Hey, back to that. You know, it's an interesting time to be single. Yes. You've reminded me that, you know, through the research, we really need to figure out how to be happy. Single. Right. And that's a little bit different for everybody. Yeah. I want to kind of turn that on its head and ask you, what do you think coupled people should learn from or take away from singles nowadays?
Yuthika Girme: I think prioritizing one's own needs is something that couples could take away from single people. I think single people are doing a really great job at saying this is what I need right now. Here are my boundaries around that and here's what I need to do to prioritize myself. And I don't think there's anything selfish about that. You know, I feel like we've kind of been tricked or gaslighted into thinking that if we prioritize ourself in a relationship, then that's like a bad thing. Then you're not paying attention to your partner, you're not prioritizing your relationship. But really, we have to be at peace with who we are to be able to turn up for our partners successfully in a romantic relationship. So I think being able to say, you know, what are the things that I need to do for myself in order to be, you know, happier for myself and be a better partner? I think those are really important messages that couple of people can learn from singles.
Vass Bednar: You're making me think of RuPaul. If you don't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?
Yuthika Girme: Amen, sister. Absolutely.
Vass Bednar: Yuthika, thank you so much for joining us today.
Yuthika Girme: No worries. Thank you so much for having me.
Vass Bednar: You've been listening to lately, a Globe and Mail podcast. Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. The show is produced by Jay Cockburn, and our sound designer is Cameron McIvor, and I'm your host. That's partner in our Shownotes. You can subscribe to the Lately newsletter where the Globe's online culture reporter Samantha Edwards unpacks more of the latest in business and technology. A new episode of Lately comes out every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.