Thesis submitted for obtaining the Doctor of Philosophy degree, Speciality 054 Sociology. V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkiv, 2023.
The thesis is devoted to a comprehensive study of the «solo-living» lifestyle, which is gaining popularity in many developed countries. The relevance of this topic stems from the fact that the number of individuals who choose to live alone has begun to grow rapidly over the past 20 years. It is a signal of social transformations and changes, but this phenomenon remains poorly studied in ukrainian sociology. This paper focuses not on older people who live alone due to the loss of a partner (this is the category that most studies focus on), but on younger age groups for whom living alone is a chosen lifestyle.
The problem is that, on the one hand, despite the existence of separate works on «Living alone» in different areas of research, they do not conceptualize this phenomenon and do not consider it as a separate lifestyle. The growing popularity of the «solo-living» lifestyle can have certain consequences in various spheres of life (from the demographic situation to the labor market), on the one hand. On the other hand, due to the fact that in the public perception they are often opposed to the established ideas of the family, the representatives of the «solo-living» lifestyle may be stigmatized and, in some cases, discriminated.
This paper analyzes and organizes the theoretical and methodological works on the theory of individualization. It is the processes of individualization that are becoming key to the emergence of a new lifestyle - the «solo-living» lifestyle. In the first section, the modern theory of individualization and its connection with the formation of new lifestyles are considered. Accordingly, the lifestyle approach to the study of social reality is considered, which served as the basis for the study of «solo-living» as a lifestyle. The factors of formation of the «solo-living» lifestyle are investigated: digital technologies, changing ideas about the family, market economy and capitalist way of life, reduced opportunities for privacy, increasing role of gig-economy, migration, disasters. In order to avoid terminological confusion, the first section also analyzes and structures related terms used in the social sciences to refer to certain elements of the «solo-living» lifestyle or phenomena that are associated with the «solo-living» lifestyle but may not actually be inherent in its carriers (social isolation, loneliness). Thus, after analyzing, organizing, and delimiting, the conceptualization and definition of the «solo-living» lifestyle was carried out.
The second chapter of the thesis is devoted to the socio-cultural context of the «solo-living» lifestyle. Based on the World values map and Ronald Inglehart`s theory of postmaterialism, the author examines the correspondence between the spread of one-person households (as the basic characteristic of the «solo-living» lifestyle) and the value orientations inherent in different countries. After that, the section reviews the literature, which allowed us to identify areas of research and methodologies for studying solo living. The «solo-living» lifestyle differs both in the history of the country and/or region and in the ways it is realized (for example, the formation of romantic relationships is more radically rejected in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) than in European countries).
The economic factor is basic and influences the choice of living without a family in different socio-cultural environments - from the economic ability to live solo to the economic inability to support a family. The analysis demonstrates examples of how the «solo-living» lifestyle is formed depending on various factors of formation, for example, wars and unsuccessful social policies of states is considered.
Based on the results obtained in the previous chapters, the third chapter is a study of the «solo-living» lifestyle in Ukraine. A preliminary analysis of the national literature has shown that «solo-living» appears as a subject of research mainly in psychology, while sociological science has no data on this category of the population. The first stage of the study of this lifestyle was a pilot survey that examined general public perceptions of the «solo-living» lifestyle and public attitudes toward its adopters. The next step was to conduct a qualitative study using the semi-structured interview method. The purpose of this stage was to determine the characteristics and peculiarities of the «solo-living» lifestyle in modern Ukraine, including the period during the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation.
The scientific novelty of the results obtained is that the thesis is the first scientific work in the national sociological science that provides a theoretical generalization of approaches to the study of solo living and solves an important scientific task - the study of the solo-lifestyle in Ukraine.
