

Most Americans are single, and they're changing the economy - roye
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-12/most-americans-are-single-dot-what-does-it-mean-for-the-economy#r=most%20popular

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codemac
What an awful graph.

Anything other than the bottom value is hard to figure out what the trend is
over time, showing they add up to 100% is kind of a waste. The x axis ticks
are not equidistant (10, 5, and 2 years between columns)..

Thanks for posting the interesting article. Wish the graph was better.

~~~
a3n
It may be awful from a professional point of view, but it's one of the few
popular media graphs where I (a non-professional) can immediately see
interesting changes.

I think the decreased period of the x on the right is useful, because we're
probably more interested in details in the near past than in 1970. And I don't
think it's necessary to expect high fidelity in a popular article meant to
summarize a lot of data for lay people.

The numbers, and the relative size of blocks, mitigate your point about trends
being difficult to see. For example, it's easy for me to see that both types
of marrieds were about 70% in 1970, and about 50% in 2012.

It's also easy to see that, in percent:

\- Marrieds with children show a major decline.

\- Marrieds without children are steady (and I really wonder why that would
be, if it's not coincidental).

\- Total marrieds show a major decline.

\- Households with children show major decline (married with plus other
families).

\- All other categories, which are single oriented, increase.

Looking at the graph makes me wonder what part of the men and women living
alone, and other non-family, were formerly part of a marriage or other family
setting (not counting their childhood).

~~~
codemac
> All other categories, which are single oriented, increase.

Well except for single females, which stays pretty steady at near 14-14.9%
from 1980 on. To me those kinds of misses _are_ due to this graph.

~~~
a3n
Good point.

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jiggy2011
I wonder how much of the increase in men living alone can be explained by
economic migration? It might have become more common for a man to move abroad
to find work and send money back to their family living back home.

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Cowicide
Wow, the comment section under the BW article is filled with really pathetic,
misogynistic comments. It's no wonder why so many of them commenting there are
single.

~~~
aianus
I don't think it's misogynistic to see that marriage is terribly risky for men
in particular.

~~~
Cowicide
Um, what? I didn't mention anything of the sort. How did you hallucinate all
that from my comment?

There are clearly misogynistic comments there including saying that all
American women are "entitled, selfish babies", etc.

Unless you're here to defend those kind of comments, you're barking up the
wrong tree.

Also, if you were the one who downvoted my comment, thanks for that other
knee-jerk reaction made in ignorance as well.

~~~
aianus
I didn't downvote you, nor did I scroll far enough to see those sorts of
comments.

~~~
Cowicide
>nor did I scroll far enough to see those sorts of comments.

Apology accepted.

