The Solo Economy: Single-Person Households Are Rewriting Consumption

The twentieth-century consumption economy was built to the measure of the crowded family. Detached houses were planned for households with many children, cars were designed around the needs of the whole family, and even restaurant menus were composed with the family table in mind. The long dinner tables of old films were not mere cinematic exaggeration; they were the idealized lifestyle portrait of that era.

Over the past few decades that portrait has started to change across the world. People marry later as careers take priority, have fewer children, and rising housing and living costs reinforce the trend. Living alone is becoming a widespread and socially accepted way of life, while the number of people per household keeps shrinking.

The figures show the speed of the shift. In Germany 43 percent of households consist of a single person, and in France and Italy the share is approaching 40 percent. In the United States, married couples with children were the most common type in 1976 at 37 percent of households; by 2021 their share had fallen to 21 percent and one-person households had taken the lead. In Turkiye, official statistics put single-person households at 3.3 million in 2016 and 5,523,321 in 2025, a jump of 66.5 percent in a decade.

There is no single cause behind the rise; several strong currents overlap. The age of first marriage in OECD countries has climbed from 28 to 34 for men, so a longer stretch of life is spent unmarried. Longer life expectancy stretches the years spent in the home after children move out. Rising incomes and the stronger economic independence of women make setting up a home alone feasible where it once was difficult.

This way of living has a direct spending consequence, best described as economies of scale running in reverse. Four people sharing one home need a single refrigerator, one internet subscription and one rent payment; spread across four separate homes, much of that spending must be made four times over. Family packs may be cheaper per unit, but limited storage and the risk of food spoiling work against the solo dweller. Research by Boston Consulting Group covering more than 13,000 consumers finds that one-person households spend two to three times more per person.

For companies the picture holds an intriguing contradiction. Despite high per-capita spending, nearly 70 percent of people living alone say products and services are not designed with them in mind. That leaves a fast-growing consumer group whose needs remain unmet. Their expectation fits in one sentence: they do not want to consume less, they want to consume at their own scale.

The first two fronts of change are product size and time saving. Single-portion ready meals and small packages stand out in groceries, while compact refrigerators and single-cup capsule coffee machines answer the same need in durables. Cooking and shopping effort that serves several people in a crowded home serves only one person in a solo home, so frozen ready food, delivery orders, robot vacuums and air fryers gain appeal. Digital retail, by contrast, still runs on the family assumption: minimum basket thresholds, multi-buy promotions and the need to be home for delivery stay inefficient for one person. The consultancy's finding is that solo dwellers use physical stores more intensively.

The third front is entertainment. Cafes with round tables for comfortable solo seating and restaurants with solo-friendly value menus are multiplying. OpenTable data shows reservations for one in the United States rose 23 percent in a single year, and 52 percent of consumers plan to take themselves out to eat at least once this year. The most striking example comes from Japan: the BBC reports that demand for single-person karaoke booths has grown so much that in some chains nearly 40 percent of customers arrive alone.

The fourth front is the individualization of time spent at home. People living alone naturally spend their evenings by themselves, creating an audience keen on video games and streaming platforms. McKinsey figures cited in the episode indicate that in Japan, one-person households spend between one and a half and three and a half times more on digital content such as video, music and e-books than larger households.

Through an investor lens, four opportunity areas stand out. As the same population splits into more households, housing demand grows, but it shifts from large family homes toward studios and one-bedroom flats, lifting compact appliances on the same logic. Convenience and experience form the second area: solo travel and tours promising new acquaintances could move ahead. The third area is the pet ecosystem: ownership is climbing fast in South Korea while nearly 70 percent of solo dwellers say care services ignore them, so a broad market spanning vets, insurance, grooming and boarding is expanding beyond pet food. The fourth area is online communities meeting the need for social connection. Companies meeting three tests will pull ahead: scaling the product to one person, saving the consumer time, and individualizing experiences once consumed in groups.