Europe’s new economic climate has largely fostered the trend toward independence.The current generation of home-aloners came of age during Europe’s shift from social democracy to the sharper, more individualistic climate of American-style capitalism. Raised in an era of privatization and increased consumer choice, today’s tech-savvy(精通技术的) workers have embraced a free market in love as well as economics. Modern Europeans are rich enough to afford to live alone,and temperamentally independent enough to want to do so.
Once upon a time, people who lived alone tended to be those on either side of marriage—twentysomething professionals or widowed senior citizens. While pensioners, particularly elderly women









