Solo Living: More People Want Their Own Space

Is solo living better than someone else’s smelly socks? More and more Danes are choosing to live alone, and it’s putting pressure on the housing market. We take a closer look at why it has become so popular to be a lady of her own domain – or a master of his own house.

After a brisk bike ride home in the drizzle, you slip the key into the front door – and almost trip over a pair of sneakers that have, all too typically, been left right in the entryway.

»Hey, honey, did you remember the milk?« calls a voice from the kitchen.

On the bathroom floor, dirty socks pile up like little mountains in front of the laundry basket. The dishwasher blinks impatiently, and on your commute home, a text pinged in: no milk for the morning oatmeal.

At the kitchen table, onions are chopped and vegetables sliced, while voices try to drown out the range hood that sluggishly sucks in the steam – and maybe also the romance: Who’s taking out the trash tonight? Who’s doing the grocery run tomorrow? And don’t forget Lars and Gitte are coming for dinner Saturday.

On the wall hangs the quote poster: Live, Laugh, Love. But it rarely feels that way when the daily negotiations keep piling up.

Living together requires coordination, compromise, and consideration – from who picks up the dirty socks to who used the last roll of toilet paper. It can bring comfort, but it can also feel draining to share four walls. And increasingly, Danes seem eager to escape those everyday negotiations – by living alone.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have a partner to curl up with on Sunday.

Together is good, but is alone better?

The numbers speak for themselves. According to Statistics Denmark, as of January 1, 2025, there were more than 1.15 million single-person households.

And the trend is accelerating. Between 2019 and 2025, the number of one-adult households without children grew by more than 100,000.

The chart below shows how household size has developed over the past 30 years.

Anthropologist Rikke Sand Andersen, author of the book Alone, links the development to both wealth and welfare.

»If we want to understand why people move apart, part of the explanation is that they can avoid all the coordination work. There’s a lot of hassle you don’t have to deal with – if you can afford it. In our culture, living alone is associated with independence. Moving out on your own isn’t seen as socially risky, but rather as a way to engage in relationships and show self-sufficiency,« says Rikke Sand Andersen.

At the same time, many responsibilities that once belonged to the household or family are now provided by the state.

»We’re no longer dependent on each other the way we used to be. There’s a lot of freedom potential in the way the welfare state is structured,« she explains.

Yours, mine, and ours don’t have to share a roof

One person who avoids clashes over laundry and dishes with her husband is jewelry designer Pernille Corydon. Her husband, Thure, lives in Vejle with his two sons, ages 18 and 16, while she lives in Haderslev, where her two children, 23 and 21, recently moved out. For them, living apart – what’s known as a COLA relationship (Couples Living Apart) – was about accommodating their kids.

»It’s not that I actively decided I wanted to live alone. It was about my husband and I living in different towns with our own children,« she explains.

When the kids were younger, they synchronized custody weeks so that they’d have “kid weeks” and “couple weeks” – a rhythm that turned out to work well. For Corydon, the arrangement has the added effect of keeping the relationship “fresh.”

»We definitely don’t get tired of each other’s dirty socks, dishes, and lunchboxes. It keeps the relationship more vibrant. It’s a huge privilege to be able to do this – but it’s also an expensive way to live,« says Pernille Corydon.

Still, there are downsides. The biggest is the absence of everyday closeness.

»Of course it would be nice to sleep together every night. There is a distance, which can be both good and bad. When you’re in a phase where you need closeness and the comfort of a relationship, being apart is tough,« she says.

Not Enough Homes for Single Households

When more people choose to live alone, it places new demands on the housing market. Many homes are still designed for families rather than singles, notes Curt Liliegreen, director of the Housing Economic Knowledge Center.

»For years, Copenhagen pursued an urban renewal strategy that removed small apartments to make way for larger ones aimed at well-off families. But today, those big apartments are so expensive that families either can’t afford them or prefer houses outside the city,« he explains.

The shift cuts across generations. Denmark is among the countries where young people move out earliest, yet the number of middle-aged single households is also rising. And it’s not just a big-city phenomenon – the trend is spreading to smaller towns as well, Curt Liliegreen explains.

Globally, highly educated, affluent singles drive housing markets in major cities. In London’s West End and Lower Manhattan, single households are the dominant type – despite sky-high prices.

At home, Liliegreen warns against going down the same path.

»In big cities, we’re already seeing a market for micro-apartments. In extreme cases like New York and Vancouver, you get units that barely count as closets – and they still cost a fortune. That shouldn’t happen in Copenhagen,« says Curt Liliegreen.

Relationships under pressure

The surge in singles isn’t just about escaping chores. It also reflects the heavy expectations placed on modern relationships, explains gender researcher and author Christian Groes.

A pop culture example: the Danish TV2 series The Best Years, where Magnus Millang and Stephania Potalivo play a couple drowning in family life. Career demands, kids, kitchen renovations, endless laundry, and in-law visits – portrayed with humor and exaggeration, but still uncomfortably familiar. The pressure to “have it all” while making it look perfect can overwhelm even the most capable.

The traditional family ideal, the nuclear family, is increasingly under negotiation, Christian Groes notes:

»People often feel they can’t live up to the expectations, and there’s a constant search for something better. At the same time, our work lives demand more flexibility. On one side, many feel they can’t meet the ideals; on the other, they’re expected to be self-reliant and ready to move on to the next thing,« he says.

Groes himself lives in a flexible family arrangement – a COLA relationship. He divides his time between Copenhagen, where he lives with his son, and Aarhus, where his wife lives.

»For me, it brings freedom and a balance: the benefits of both togetherness and single life. In one phase, I can immerse myself in work and my son; in another, I can focus on my relationship,« Christian Groes explains.

Home or hotel?

To understand why living together has become less attractive, it’s worth revisiting British anthropologist Mary Douglas. In her 1991 book The Idea of a Home, she describes the difference between a home and a hotel.

Living together requires conformity: agreeing on mealtimes, chores, and routines. In a hotel, by contrast, the cooking is done by a chef and the bed is made by housekeeping. Building and maintaining a home with others requires discipline – and tolerance of their habits, noises, and smells.

It’s precisely this discipline many now find burdensome, Douglas argued. On top of that, we’ve been fed unrealistic ideas of love and relationships.

»We’ve been bombarded with Hollywood fantasies of the perfect man and woman – how beautiful, strong, and successful they should be. There’s a mismatch between those ideals and what people can actually live up to,« says Groes.

Andersen, meanwhile, highlights the welfare state as a key driver of solo living.

»In the 1950s and 60s, you can see people gradually moving apart. As late as 1970, about a third of Danish households contained multiple generations. Since then, family units have shrunk and shrunk,« she notes.

If the trend continues, we’ll need to rethink housing design.

»We need to sit down and ask: how should we live today? Many parents only have their kids half the time, others travel often or eat out most of the week. Do they really need a large apartment with a big kitchen? Or should we think differently?« asks Liliegreen.

He believes future housing will need to be more adaptable to shifting lifestyles.