Okay, the Washington Post published this pie chart of US household types. Here’s what it says the breakdown is:
Living alone – 25.8%
Married couple & child – 22.4%
Parent & child – 22.2%
Married couple – 21.2%
Other – 8.4%
The title is, “One Is Not the Loneliest Number,” with the subtitle, “‘Single Adult’ is the most common US household type.”
So, okay, yes, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean that half of America is unmarried. Single adult households contain one adult; married couple households contain two. This means that if the numbers of single households and married households are equal, a third of the population is unmarried (well, not exactly, since there’s that ‘Other’ thing going on). For single adults to be more prevalent than married adults, the percentage of single adult households would need to be 67%, or double that of married households.
All I’m getting at here is that their title sucks, because there are fewer single individuals than married individuals, but that’s not quite the implication. Or maybe that’s just me. But I really dislike misleading and unclear graphics.
Also, why are “Married couple and child” and “Married couple” two separate categories? When you combine them, as one should for this type of analysis, 44.6% of households are married, compared with 25.8% that are single. I suppose the way the Post did the chart was supposed to make single people feel better about being single.
It didn’t.
I think “Married couple” correlates to “Living alone”, while “Married couple and child” correlates to “Parent & child”. You’re right the total married number is 44.6%, but I think the total single number is 48%. If I’m adding correctly. I just woke up from a nap. I’m a little foggy.
You’re right, I guess, but to me, even in the case of “Parent and child,” there’s someone else there — not really the same as “Living Alone.” In my mind, that’s a separate, third category. “Married couple” and “Married couple and child” seems more or less the same living experience to me, although maybe those in those situations would disagree.