What do you get when you take a psychologist, an academic, a life coach, a ‘social theorist’, three writers, an editor and a sex columnist? The Observer’s panel on singledom in 2000.
By 2010, it was predicted, 40% of all households would be one-person (actually, the 2011 England and Wales figure was 30%). Was that ‘terrifying’, as Kathryn Flett, moderating, suggested? That depended, trend forecaster Professor Richard Scase pointed out, on your gender. In psychological and physical health terms, relationships were ‘Good news for men, bad news for women’. Women who left relationships became ‘happier, healthier and fitter’; the opposite was true for men.
