Tuesday, October 25, 2005

This can't be right

My marketing text book also says that one out of every eight households in America is now an "alternative" or "non-traditional" household. The writers say that "alternative" or "non-traditional" households include the following groupings:

single people living alone
single adults living together
same sex couples
same sex parents
couples without children
single parents
empty nests

I don't see how it can only be one in eight. I can only think of a couple people I know who don't live in an alternative household, if you go with this definition. It also seems like about half of the people I know grew up in an alternative household. Is it possible that almost everyone I interact with is "alternative" in relation to the nation's average?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

that can't be right. your average person who has kids will only be in a "traditional" household for 36-40 years of their life (18 as a kid, 18 as a parent, and a couple extra for 'mistakes'). I don't know anything about statistics, but that's got to mean something.

Anonymous said...

Weird. People do live at home a lot longer nowadays, and certain ethnic groups live in family-bsed households, but still...