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Singles |
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SINGLE STATS: The Rights of Singles From Singles, The Magazine for Today's Single As more and more of American adults chose not to marry during their lives, the numbers of single people are growing and questions are coming to the forefront as to whether single people need special rights in an inherently marriage-minded society. The further they advance in years, single people who live alone are often considered strange or somehow lacking by outsiders, who often disregard the network of friends and family that serve as support. And singles who live together as partners are sometimes discriminated against when trying to rent apartments or houses. The most disturbing aspect of this discrimination comes down on gay couples, who do not even have the option of marriage. More specifically speaking, singles are directly discriminated against in instances of employment, housing, credit, insurance, child custody and visitation rules, taxes, and consumer discounts. According to the American Association for Single People (AASP-founded in 1985 and incorporated in 1987--at www.singlesrights.com there are 80 million single adults in the United States, making them more than 40% of the adult population, and, in most metropolitan areas, singles make up the majority of the adult population. AASP insists that most of these people are unaware of their rights and do not realize that they should protest practices against them. Also according to AASP, singles tend to be renters rather than home-owners, occupying 62% of the nation’s rental units and only 21% of the nation’s owner-occupied units. This may be indicative of the single lifestyle of not really having to settle down with a family, but the fact that most renters are single should not force society to assume they do not wish to own homes and are incapable of doing so. For the racial breakdown, African American households are the least likely to have a married couple, while Hispanic households are the most likely, and Caucasian households are 56% likely to contain a married couple. Fifteen million older adults live alone, and thirteen million adults with disabilities live alone. Further, even if a couple does get married, they are most likely to have cohabited together before marriage; there was a 28% increase in unmarried cohabitation between 1990 and 1994. Thus the reverence of the ties of official marriage has been dissolving, and people choose to refrain from marriage and build their own unions, disregarding the law. This is indicated by the breakdown of much of traditional America, and the influx of so many different views and cultures on society as a whole. And the numbers of singles continue to grow. At the end of the second millenium, the marriage rate was steadily decreasing, while the divorce rate stayed relatively steady. This brings us to childbirth—by 1992, one in three births in the United States was non-marital, in contrast to 1980, when only one in five births was non-marital. Most interestingly, in 1998, the Census Bureau said that the majority of births were to unmarried parents. While fifty years ago, such births were considered shameful and products of them were shunned by society, today we are more easy-going with the increase and acceptance of artificial insemination, single mothers, single fathers, all sorts of adoption and foster services, gay couples having children, and surrogate motherhood. Societal views on this previous list, sometimes viewed as controversial, tend to have relaxed. This all stems from societal views of sex-only 37% of Americans viewed premarital sex as wrong in 1991, as opposed to 68% in 1969 (National Opinion Research Center)-which has been dramatically changing in the last century. So what does this all mean? Why are all these numbers important? (The AASP seems to think so.) Well, the numbers prove the increasing trends and give a backbone changing ideas about marital status in American society. And the numbers make the following actual occurrences inexcusable: (Stories summarized from the AASP website.) Debra Deem and Jim Reilly moved from Alaska to Arizona. Jim had a job lined up and Debra moved with him. She applied in Arizona to be a juvenile probation officer. Her interviewer was highly impressed by her resume and application only to terminate the interview and any possibility of a job with the last question: "Do you live a person of the opposite sex out of wedlock?" Unmarried cohabitation is considered illegal in a handful of states. Brian Mondela moved to Los Angeles, hoping to find a job as an on-site housing manager, like he had in Detroit. All the ads for such jobs in Los Angeles indicated "Married Couples Only." Brian called a few of the prospective jobs anyway, explaining that he lived with his partner Xavier, who would be helping with household chores. He was told many times: "Married couples only." He moved back to Detroit. After retiring, Tony Melia bought a motor home because he wanted to travel more. Regardless of his unblemished driving record, Tony had to pay a hefty sum to insure the vehicle as a "single driver surcharge." Gregory Anderson and Michael Connolly lived together for nine years and shared a condominium in New York. While visiting Los Angeles, Michael was killed by a stranger. Local police took in a key suspect who admitted guilt. Greg contacted Los Angeles police to determine the defendant’s name, his place of imprisonment, and specifics of his sentence. He was denied access to any of this information because he was not the spouse or blood relative of the victim. |