Young, free, single - and skint. Singletons aged 25 to 29 have become poorer over the last 20 years compared with the average population

Single young people are getting poorer compared to the average population even those with dependent children, with stagnating disposable income and onerous living costs pressing down on prosperity.

New data accessed by the Guardian reveals that singletons aged 25 to 29 in eight rich countries – the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Spain, Italy, France and Germany – have become poorer over the last 20 years compared with the average population, and unattached young adults are finding it harder than ever to set up on their own.

Analysis also revealed that after inflation, people aged 25 to 29 who live by themselves have less post-tax income in real terms now than their equivalents 20-30 years ago in five out of eight developed economies: the US, Canada, France, Germany and Spain.



In these countries, not only do those who live by themselves find living costs more onerous – as they attempt to pay rent and bills by themselves rather than splitting them with a partner or flatmate – but, according to the new data, they earn less as well.



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For solo dwellers in their late 20s in the US, 2010 was the worst year. At that time the average income after tax for a single 25- to 29-year-old living alone was $27,757, 9% lower than the national average. The equivalent figure in 1979, adjusted for inflation, was $29,638.

Eric Klinenberg, author of Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, said the number of people living alone was increasing, albeit more slowly than it did between the 1950s and 1980s, when there was a dramatic rise.



He said that he believed the Guardian’s findings might suggest that despite declining disposable incomes, young people were still willing to pay a premium for what he described as a “key route” into adulthood.

Despite financial difficulties, the numbers of single person households is still considerable. In the US the share of such households of all ages stood at 27.6% in 2014. Across Europe, single people account for 32.7% of all households in the latest figures.

Klinenberg said the big drivers for the rise in living alone were women entering the labour market, the increase in divorce, and in Europe social housing that provided lower cost apartments for single people. He added that the phenomenon of younger adults delaying key milestones, such as marriage and parenthood, was also driving single living.

“We’ve seen an increase in the age of first marriage, which means a longer period of time when people are unmarried. And in that period of time people are more likely to live alone,” he said.

“They’re single, they’re focusing on their careers, and they are building an alternative support network of friends rather than having children, as their parents or grandparents did at that age,” he said.

Klinenberg said the Guardian’s figures indicated living alone was so important to young people that they were willing to pay a heavy economic price to do so.

“The motivation for people to live alone is so strong that people are willing to continue doing it even if it is financially difficult.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ashley Ball, 29, at home in Portland, Oregon. Photograph: Natalie Behring/Natalie Behring for the Guardian

Ashley Ball, 29, who lives in Portland Oregon, agrees. “I loved living alone in my own apartment [in Phoenix, Arizona], but my wallet didn’t. I was 25 and very naively signed a year-long lease expecting to move in and be able to live the lifestyle I saw my parents living when I was growing up.”

It makes Ball laugh to think about the expectations she had of what she would be able to afford – furnishing her apartment and having money spare to eat out and go on trips with friends.

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“I think I took all those movies to heart. You know the kind, the twenty-something living in a super hip apartment in a cool downtown area with plenty of money to go out all the time and order take-out.”

Ball, who is a legal secretary with a degree in English literature, soon started funding her life using credit card debt.

“I found myself wanting two mutually exclusive things: great quality of life and financial comfort.”

Eventually she had to quit her apartment and move into a shared house in Portland, Oregon. Now she’s forsaking consumption in order to live independently once more.

“I no longer indulge in fast fashion, I sold my car, I don’t drink any more, I cook at home more than ever. I use the library instead of buying books. Some of these changes were hard. But the up-side is, I can afford my own apartment again.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martin Klausch, 24, can afford to rent an apartment on his own in Berlin. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian

Martin Klausch, 24, has lived on his own in a flat in Berlin’s Schöneberg district for the past three years. He used to live in a shared flat on the outskirts of the German capital. “When you first move to a big city, it helps living with friends, but when I got a job as a research assistant at university, I wanted less of a commute. Now I enjoy that I only have to clear up my own shit, and that I don’t feel like I am being watched all the time.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jill MacKay, a university lecturer. Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/The Guardian

Klausch was lucky: after paying €300 in rent a month for his flatshare, he only had to pay €100 extra for a decent-sized apartment, including bills. “You can still find cheap flats to rent in Berlin,” he said, “but they are increasingly rare and finding them can take time. When it gets expensive is when people break up and they are forced to find somewhere at short notice.”

Like most members of his generation, Klausch has been working in several jobs: while studying to become an English teacher, he has worked as a carer and a researcher at the news agency Agence France-Presse.

“The main difference between my generation and that of my parents is that we never seem to settle. As a teacher, I am fairly lucky because there is a shortage of people doing my job. But many of my friends are constantly on the move: two months in Copenhagen, two weeks on work experience in New York. We have been taught to be flexible and be ready at short notice all the time. That’s also why so few of us have plans to have kids.”

Even those who do manage to live alone make significant sacrifices to do so. Jill Mackay, 30, seems to be doing well when it comes to housing. After coming into an inheritance she now owns her own reasonably sized one-bed flat in the city.

“Without that, I wouldn’t have been able to finish my PhD unpaid and would have moved back to my parents,” she said.

However, life for the Edinburgh university lecturer is still very difficult.

“I’m still on a fixed-term contract,” said Mackay. This, combined with the fact she teaches night courses, means she has no time for much socialising.

“There’s no time away at all, no let up. It’s been constant working to stay competitive in my job and I just don’t have the energy to then go out and date.”

Additional reporting by Pamela Duncan