ABSTRACT
The increasing number of people living alone is changing the face of post-industrial societies. The average household size over the past two decades in the United States declined by about 10% to 2.5 (Hobbs & Stoops, 2002). By 1990, more than one in five family households with children under 18 was headed by a single parent, and within a single decade, the proportion of single parent households rose from 21% to 29% of all households in the United States (Hobbs & Stoops, 2002). Family households were not the only residential unit to become more socially isolated. There are also now more than 27 million people living alone in the United States, 36% of whom are over the age of 65 (Hobbs & Stoops, 2002). According to the middle projections by the Census Bureau (1996), the number of people living alone by 2010 will reach almost 29,000,000—more than a 30% increase since 1980, with a disproportionate share of these being individuals over 65 years of age.
