The 'Swedish Model' Is a Failure, Not a Panacea

[Celerity]

18. 39.2 percent of all households (and 17.8 percent of all people) here live alone

Why do so many Swedes live alone?

Picture a Swedish home. If you’ve spent time in one of the country’s big cities, you’re probably visualizing an apartment: white walls, Ikea furniture, tasteful minimalism… and a single occupant. People in Sweden are more likely to live alone than in any other country, with four out of ten households home to just one person. But what does this actually tell us about the Swedes? Perhaps not the things you'd expect.

https://www.thelocal.se/20180412/why-do-so-many-swedes-live-alone

In 2017, 1.8 million people in Sweden lived alone, representing 39.2 percent of all households (and 17.8 percent of all people), a proportion that has barely changed since 1990. It's tempting to use this fact to back up the image many of us have as Sweden: a big, cold country where no-one makes small talk and personal space is fiercely guarded. The cry of "I want to be alone!" from Greta Garbo's character in the film Grand Hotel is often used to sum up the Swedish love of solitude – but the story of why people are more likely to live alone in Sweden than anywhere else is much more complicated than that.

Swedes do tend to place a great deal of importance on independence, and that living alone is a part of that. One proverb states 'ensam är stark' (alone is strong). "In the majority of cases, living alone is a temporary phase, not a lifestyle choice," Gunnar Andersson, a professor in demographics at Stockholm University, tells The Local. "Looking at the data, the proportion of single households isn't stable across different genders, income groups, or ages." There are two main phases when living alone is particularly common: in early adulthood (age 19-30), between moving out of the parental home and moving in with a partner, and in retirement (over age 65), when married people may become widowed. There's also a gender split. Single households are made up of roughly 53 percent women and 47 percent men, with women over-represented among the older age groups and men among the younger. This fits in with the demographic trends that see men typically marry slightly later than women, and women live longer on average.

Andersson points out that this is nothing new in Sweden. "The basic underlying structures have been the same for a long time. In older farming societies, young people would move out of their parental home but would usually go to work on another farm with other people. So statistics showed them as lodgers rather than living alone, or perhaps the marriage age was younger so you'd move into a marital home – but the idea of moving out and gaining independence was always there historically." "The basic patterns are very stable," he says. The researcher has noticed a growing interest in his studies from researchers and media abroad, including in Asian countries such as South Korea. In contrast to Sweden, he says these countries are actually undergoing demographic changes, with a higher proportion of people choosing to remain unmarried or childless, while in Sweden that proportion has remained roughly the same over the past century.

One of the most comprehensive theses on Swedish individualism was published in 2006 by Lars Trägårdh and Bengt Berggren. Under the provocative title 'Is the Swede a Human Being?' they explore the Swedish model on which the modern welfare state was built. A central idea is that each person should be able to be free from ties to other people, financial or otherwise, so that for example parents are not obliged to support adult children or elderly relatives and women are able to pursue an independent life and career without needing to marry. The book made waves abroad, turning on its head the idea of Swedes as collaborative socialists, and helps explain why moving out of the parental home is such an important part of growing up in Sweden. But the analysis by Trägårdh and Bergren didn't show a country where people remained totally unconnected throughout their lives; rather, it was one where all connections were a result of choice, not necessity. In fact, they argued that relationships were made more authentic when there was no interdependence. And while some people in Sweden, as in other countries, choose to spend their lives alone, a larger portion choose not to.

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