雅思阅读 171: The Rise of the Solo Household（单人家庭的兴起）

改编自 World Population Review / Our World in Data / NUS Institute of Policy Studies。雅思阅读 Section 3 难度，约 1050 词。 素材来源：https://ourworldindata.org/social-connections-and-loneliness

Reading Passage

A. A quiet demographic shift has remade the households of nearly every wealthy country, and many middle-income ones too. Roughly 400 million people around the world now live alone, amounting to about 15 percent of all households, and the figure has climbed steadily for decades without a single recorded year of reversal. Sociologists call the one-person household the fastest-growing household type on the planet. It is no longer, as it was a generation ago, a condition associated almost entirely with widowed elderly people; in city after city it includes young professionals, mid-career migrants and divorced adults who have chosen a solo life by preference rather than by bereavement. The consequences ripple far beyond the home itself, reshaping housing markets, food retail, public services and the way whole populations think about friendship, family and loneliness.

B. The scale of the change is easiest to see in extremes. In the United States, the number of people living alone has almost sextupled since 1960, and the proportion of one-person households has more than doubled; back in 1940, the decennial census put the figure at barely 7.7 percent. More than 37 million Americans now occupy a household of one. Northern Europe is the global epicentre: in Sweden over half of all households contain a single person, a proportion that would have been unimaginable a few generations ago, with Denmark, Norway and Finland close behind. In Asia the trend is gathering speed. In South Korea a cultural movement dubbed honjok — the deliberate embrace of doing things alone, from dining to travelling — has pushed one-person households above 30 percent, while Taiwan reached a record 40.5 percent in 2026, and China counted more than 125 million one-person households in its 2020 census. Even within continents the spread is uneven: cross-country surveys show single-person households exceeding 40 percent in parts of northern Europe while remaining close to 1 percent in some low-income Asian settings, a gap that warns the trend is inseparable from wealth and welfare.

C. Several forces drive the rise, and they are easy to confuse. The oldest is demographic: as populations age and people live longer, more spend their final years as widows or widowers. In parts of Europe, over half of elderly seniors now live alone, especially in the Baltic and Nordic countries. Layered on top is a social shift. Marriage is delayed and fertility falls, divorce has become common and labour migration pulls young adults to cities far from their families; because fewer people marry young and more never marry at all, the unmarried population swells. Researchers at the National University of Singapore conclude that, across Asia, these trends — declining marriage and fertility, rising divorce, widowhood and migration — guarantee that solo living will keep growing for decades. Cities accelerate it, too, because they concentrate jobs, universities and services while offering small, affordable studio flats designed for one occupant.

D. Crucially, the new solo household is not simply an extension of old age. A large and fast-growing share of people living alone are young, urban and, by their own account, content. The Korean honjok phenomenon is led precisely by young professionals in Seoul who weigh independence against the traditional extended family and choose the former. In Northern Europe, strong social safety nets and a cultural emphasis on self-sufficiency make solo living sustainable at every life stage, not merely as an impoverished widowhood. This is why the rise of one-person households is not automatically a story of misery: many of the people now living alone do so by preference, valuing autonomy, privacy and the freedom to arrange their days without negotiation. Products and services have rushed to meet them — single-serve packaging, one-person restaurants, small-appliance makers and flat-pack furniture built around the single occupant. Entire industries, from instant meals sized for one to studios with no spare bedroom, now profit from a way of living that would once have seemed eccentric. Property markets, too, have responded: small flats that would once have seemed cramped become, in cities where one person is the norm, the default product, and whole apartment blocks are built around a single resident rather than a family.

E. Yet the social costs of the trend are real and cannot be waved away. Loneliness researchers warn that a life lived almost entirely alone, even when chosen, can erode the daily contact on which mental health depends, and that the very success of solo living masks a quiet epidemic of social disconnection, especially among the elderly and the isolated young. Countries respond in very different ways: those with generous welfare states and dense urban public life make solo living tolerable, while places with weaker safety nets expose the lone elderly to hardship. The lesson of the last seventy years is that the household once treated as the default unit of society — the family of several — is quietly giving way to one person. Whether that shift is celebrated as liberation or mourned as atomisation, it is, demographically, not going into reverse, and cities and policies will have to be built around it. That means designing for someone who eats alone, recovers from illness alone, and may, in the very long run, need to be found if they fall ill in the night. A household built around one person needs smaller pipes, smaller shops and smaller parks, but also neighbours, phone calls and public benches on which to sit. None of this is automatic, and none of it is impossible; it is simply the work of a century that has quietly decided, one flat at a time, to live alone. Whether that is cause for celebration or alarm, the single-person household is now the unit most cities will have to serve.

Questions 1-4

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B, C, D and E from the list of headings below.

List of Headings i. Where solo living has become most common ii. How census taking is organised iii. The multiple forces behind the trend iv. The economics of the housing market v. Not just old age — a chosen, young way of life vi. Why people stop eating alone vii. Loneliness, and a trend that will not reverse

1. Paragraph B: ____
2. Paragraph C: ____
3. Paragraph D: ____
4. Paragraph E: ____

Questions 5-8

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

5. What proportion of global households is one-person? A. About 15 percent. B. Nearly 80 percent. C. Exactly 7.7 percent. D. Less than 1 percent.

6. Which country is described as having over half of all households occupied by one person? A. South Korea. B. Sweden. C. The United States. D. China.

7. According to the NUS researchers, what will happen to solo living in Asia? A. It will decline as families reunite. B. It will continue to grow for decades. C. It is already at its peak. D. It will be banned by governments.

8. Why do sociologists emphasise that the new solo household is not simply about old age? A. Most single-person homes are now occupied by young, urban people who choose this life. B. Old people refuse to live alone. C. Elderly people prefer shared flats. D. Young people cannot afford rent.

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?

Write:

• TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9. The number of Americans living alone has almost sextupled since 1960.
10. South Korea's honjok movement is led mainly by elderly widows.
11. Cities encourage solo living by offering small flats designed for one occupant.
12. All people living alone report being lonely and miserable.
13. The one-person household is the fastest-growing household type worldwide.

Questions 14-15

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

The rise of solo living is driven by delayed marriage, falling fertility, rising (14) __________, widowhood and urban migration. Researchers warn it can mask a quiet epidemic of social (15) __________.

答案与解析

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