Living Alone in the City
- Autor(en)
- Nina-Sophie Fritsch, Bernhard Riederer, Lena Seewann
- Abstrakt
Over the past decades, the number of single households is constantly rising in metropolitan regions. In addition, they became increasingly heterogeneous. In the media, individuals who live alone are sometimes still presented as deficient. Recent research, however, indicates a way more complex picture. Using the example of Vienna, this paper investigates the quality of life of different groups of single households in the city. Based on five waves of the Viennese Quality of Life Survey covering almost a quarter of a century (1995–2018), we analyse six domains of subjective well-being (satisfaction with the financial situation, the housing situation, the main activity, the family life, social contacts, and leisure time activities). Our analyses reveal that, in most domains, average satisfaction of single households has hardly changed over time. However, among those living alone satisfaction of senior people (60+) increased while satisfaction of younger people (below age 30) decreased. Increasing differences in satisfaction with main activity, housing, or financial situation reflect general societal developments on the Viennese labour and housing markets. The old clichéd images of the “young, reckless, happy single” and the “lonely, poor, dissatisfied senior single” reverse reality.
- Organisation(en)
- Institut für Soziologie
- Externe Organisation(en)
- Universität Potsdam, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU), Statistik Austria, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW)
- Journal
- Applied Research in Quality of Life
- Band
- 18
- Seiten
- 2065-2087
- Anzahl der Seiten
- 23
- ISSN
- 1871-2584
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10177-w
- Publikationsdatum
- 05-2023
- Peer-reviewed
- Ja
- ÖFOS 2012
- 504006 Demographie, 504011 Familienforschung
- Schlagwörter
- ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- Life-span and Life-course Studies
- Link zum Portal
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/living-alone-in-the-city(0275c604-67eb-43e6-862b-90f7f32b0bcb).html