More Alaskans Live By Themselves28% of Ketchikan Households 1-Person Dwellings
June 05, 2014
According Hunsinger, more than 65,000 Alaskans live alone, representing 10 percent of the overall population and a quarter of households statewide. Though for some this might conjure images of a cabin-dwelling sourdough or a researcher at a remote outpost, most who live on their own are a diverse group living mainly in the state’s population centers according to Eddie Hunsinger a demographer at the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development in Anchorage. Still, some demographic characteristics stand out, including that more men live alone and that the rate of living alone increases with age reports Hunsinger in the June 2014 issue of Alaska Economic Trends. Since 1980, Hunsinger reports the share of Alaskans statewide living alone has grown by just 2 percent, but the composition of the group has shifted, with an increasing percentage age 65 or older.
Statewide Husinger reports, Alaskans in their 50s make up more than a quarter of those who live by themselves. They are part of the large cohort of baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, who also make up a large share of Alaska’s total population.
With the increasing tendency to live alone with age, the baby boomers’ children — another large cohort — will also someday make up a much larger share of the living-alone population writes Husinger. Statewide, there’s also a smaller, temporary living-alone peak among those in their mid-to-late 20s reports Husinger. This age group lives alone at a rate of 10 percent, often as they’re beginning their careers, compared to more than 20 percent at high ages. For people in their 30s, the rate drops a couple of percentage points. Between 2000 and 2010, more 25-to-34-year-olds in Alaska and nationwide lived with their parents, which likely muted that temporary peak writes Husinger. Differences between men and women Husinger found that from ages 15 to 25, statewide, men and women live alone at roughly equivalent rates. In the next age group, 25 to 49, men live alone at a higher rate — 3 to 5 percent higher — largely because women are more likely to be single parents. According to Husinger, people who have never married or who are divorced or separated make up the lion’s share of Alaskans living by themselves (see Exhibit 3. And because women are more likely to live with children, Alaskans living alone who have never married or are divorced/separated are more likely to be male.
Husinger found tjat widowed women are also a substantial share of one-person households statewide, due in part to women’s longer life expectancies and the fact that husbands tend to be a bit older than their wives. As Alaska ages, Husinger said we will no doubt have more widows and widowers, though widowers are more likely to remarry. By age 65, women live alone at a 5 to 10 percent higher rate than men. Living Alone Around the State Though in terms of numbers, Husinger found, most people who live alone are in the state’s more populated areas — mainly Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough — small communities in the Denali, Haines, and Skagway boroughs have the highest rates of living alone in the state as of 2010, at 15 percent each. It’s also notable that areas with the lowest rates of one-person households are small as well, including the remote regions of Southwest and Northern Alaska. (See Exhibit 4.)
Click on the graphic for a larger view. Many who live alone have a disability Based on the 2008-2012 data, Husinger found that 13 percent of Alaskans have a disability, and 34 percent of people who live alone have a disability. More than 70 percent of the disabled population was age 65 or older, so the disparity is at least partly attributable to single-person households being older overall — no one younger than 15 was counted as living alone, and well over half of Alaskans who live alone are 50 or older. Conversely, people with disabilities are more likely than average to live alone, particularly those between 15 and 64 Husinger reported. Eighteen percent in this age group who have disabilities lived alone compared to around 10 percent of that entire age group.
Income and poverty levels The key difference between these areas’ extremes is age structure — the Denali, Haines, and Skagway boroughs have many people age 50 or more and the Southwest and Northern regions have a lot of children. Among the broader economic regions, the Southeast, Gulf Coast, and Interior led with the highest shares of one-person households wrote Husinger. According to the 2010 Census, the Ketchikan Borough has 5,305 households. 1,478 people live in 1-person households in the Ketchikan Borough -- or 11% percent of Ketchikan's population lives alone or 28% of the borough's households are 1-person dwellings. Husinger found the median household income for Alaskans who lived alone was less than $38,000 per year, compared to nearly $70,000 per year for all households. One-person households support fewer people, though — the average number of people per household in Alaska is 2.7, and without counting single-person homes it’s more than 3.5 — so per capita incomes for those who live alone are higher than for the overall population.
Because they don’t share living costs, Husinger found those who live alone in Alaska tend to spend more of their income on rent, at 17 percent compared to just 9 percent for all renters. Among homeowners, the average ratio of owner costs to income was 17 percent and 13 percent, respectively. As of 2008 to 2012, single-person households had a poverty rate just 1 percent higher than the Alaska average, at 11 percent versus 10 percent. The difference is more pronounced among seniors, however. For those 65 and older, 10 percent who live alone were in poverty versus 5 percent for all seniors reported Husinger.
According to Husinger's findings, living alone is particularly common among poor women. Sixty percent of women age 65 or more who were in poverty lived alone between 2008 and 2012, which is in line with national estimates. This is more than double the rate for male seniors in poverty, more than double the rate for all women 65 or older, and six times the rate of the overall population — also trends that hold nationally. On the other end of the spectrum, among the higher income brackets shown in Exhibit 8, the rate of living alone increases for women but remains about the same for men. This also follows the nation’s pattern.
Employment doesn’t differ much According to Husinger, people who live alone participate in the labor force at about the same rate as the overall population. According to the 2008 to 2012 data, roughly one-third were outside the labor force, meaning they were neither working nor looking for work. The reasons for people being out of the labor force were likely quite different, though. People living alone, by definition, don’t have roommates, spouses, or parents with whom they live to help cover household expenses. Because a larger share of people living alone are past traditional working ages, however, they are more likely to be retired and living on savings, Social Security, or other benefits said Husinger.
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