The Covid pandemic forced many of us to spend considerably more time in our homes than ever before. Research from Michigan State University suggests this exposure was not so good for all of us.
“We found that single parents are much less satisfied with their neighborhoods than married parents, and childfree people who don’t want children aren’t much better off,” the researchers explain.
Neighborhood satisfaction
The researchers analyzed how satisfied people are with their neighborhood, and broke things down by the specific type of household. They covered child-free adults, empty nesters, and single parents, as well as the traditional nuclear family.
They gathered data from around 1,000 adults who had all completed the university’s State of the State Survey. They wanted to overcome the difficulty many such studies of neighborhoods face in that they only compare parents with nonparents.
“Married parents were generally very satisfied with their neighborhoods,” the researchers explain. “People who were planning to have children, or whose children had already moved out, were also pretty satisfied. But, neighborhoods don’t seem to be designed with single parents or childfree people in mind.”
While it’s not easy to actually put satisfaction into numbers, the researchers nonetheless suggest that people without children and single parents aren’t happy with their neighborhoods, and this resulted in a rise in stress during the pandemic.
The authors argue that because Michigan is similar demographically to the rest of the country, their findings can probably be replicated in other cities across the United States. Indeed, they believe that it is also likely to apply regardless of whether the neighborhood is rural, suburban, or urban, as well as high- or low-income.
“Because single parents tend to have less income, they have fewer choices about where to live,” the authors propose. “Childfree adults may be less satisfied because they feel excluded when parents plan neighborhood social events that are often kid- or school-focused.”
