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The 1960s has great cachet. The decade earned it with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and big-time advances in civil rights, women's rights, and more. But wow, did that decade begin in a dim place. Here are just a few of the ways that life in 1960 was stunningly different – and by that I mean far worse – than it is today.
#1 In the ways they were viewed by others, single people were savaged. Now, when I talk about people who are single at heart (who live their best and most authentic lives as single people), or when individual single people say that they like living single, we get responses like "oh, you just haven't met the right person yet," or, when they are being a bit more presumptuous, "deep down inside, you don't really mean that." But just before 1960, a national survey found that 80 percent of Americans thought that people who wanted to be single were "immoral," "neurotic," or "sick."
#2 Maybe those scathing attitudes had something to do with how few single people there were back then. In 1960, only about 32 million Americans, 18 and older, were single (either divorced or widowed or always-single). That was 28 percent of the adult population. By 2013, there were 105 million single Americans, accounting for 44 percent of the adult population. The word dramatic is overused, but a jump from 32 million single people to 105 million of us is truly dramatic.
#3 On New Year's Day in 1960, the birth control method that became so popular that it is known simply as "The Pill," was not yet available. The FDA did not approve it until May. Still, it took until 1972 and a Supreme Court decision in order to make the pill widely and legally available to single women.
#4 This is what life was like for women in their early 30s in 1960: nearly 80 percent of them did not have a college degree and did have a husband and kids. Some specifics:
- Among women between 30 and 34 years old, in 1960, only 7 percent had a bachelor's degree (or higher); by 2012, 40 percent did.
- Among the same women, only 30 percent were employed in 1960; by 2012, 71 percent were employed.
- In 1960, 93 percent (!) of women in their early 30s were married; by 2012, 66 percent were.
- In 1960, 89 percent of women in their early 30s were had kids of their own living with them; by 2012, 73 percent did.
#5 In 1960, out of every 100 children, 65 lived in a family in which the parents were married, the dad worked, and the mom stayed home. By 2012, only 22 out of every 100 American kids lived such "married male-breadwinner" families.
#6 In 1960, only 1 child in every 350 lived with a mother who had never been married! By 2012, 22 out of every 100 kids lived with a single mom, and only half of those moms had ever been married.
#7 Compare #3 to #2 and look what you find: In 2012, more children live in a single-mother household than in a married household in which dad is employed and mom is not.
[Note: Data for #4 through #7 came from a new report published by the Council on Contemporary Families, "Family diversity is the new normal for American children," written by Philip Cohen. Thanks to CCF for their terrific work.]
