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Today, there are more than 32 million people living alone—according to the latest census estimates, 32.7 million—and that’s about 28 percent of all American households. This is an enormous change since the middle of the 20th century and earlier. In 2009, the proportion of American women who were married dropped below fifty percent; and the median age of first marriages, which had remained between twenty and twenty-two years old for nearly a century (1890–1980), had risen dramatically to 27. Author and sociologist Eric Klinenberg (Going Solo) and journalist and author Rebecca Traister (All the Single Ladies) unpack the significance of uncoupling sex from marriage and its impact on contemporary American life, feminism, and power structures.
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Society
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