singlism | Financial Fairness For Singles

SINGLES BASHING JUST ANOTHER FORM OF MARITAL STATUS DISCRIMINATION

(These thoughts are purely the blunt, no nonsense personal opinions of the author about financial fairness and discrimination and are not intended to provide personal or financial advice.)

Tomorrow, February 20, is designated Family Day in Canada and was originally created to give people time to spend with their families, but also provides a day off between New Year’s Day and Good Friday as they are approximately three months apart.

It is no surprise that singles still have a hard time being recognized as part of the family. Wouldn’t it be nice if families on Family Day took the time to thank and recognize singles for their contributions to the family unit? The following blog article was recently published in a local newspaper earlier in the month. It was in response to the town council seeking approval for a wage increase for its councillors.

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In article ‘Council wages to increase’ one councillor apparently stated another councillor’s perspective on not raising council wages was “perhaps influenced by being a single individual and not yet having to divide his time between a day job, part-time councillor’s job and family”.

Stress is no respecter of marital status and hits singles equally to married and coupled persons. Singles today have great difficulty living on just one salary and no government benefits while constantly having to pay more than families. One example is today’s upside down housing equivalent to “loan shark and pay day loan” status where family values are replaced by greed of business. In one Calgary housing complex smallest 552 sq. ft. micro-condos with starting price of $299,900 equals $543 per sq. ft. while largest 1830 sq. ft. ultra deluxe models priced from $649,900 to $749,900 equals $355 to $409 per sq. ft. Ripple effects are owners of biggest lifetime expense (singles and poor families) proportionately pay more house and education taxes, mortgage interest and real estate fees on less house and less take home pay. Price per square foot of detached family and multi-millionaire housing is usually less than micro-condos. Same premise can be applied to renting.

Singles are not liabilities to family units, they are assets. They help support families by paying education taxes even though they have no children and their EI contributions, even when they have never used EI, help support maternal/paternal leaves of families with children.

Families continually state their hearts are forever changed when they bear their children, yet these hearts appear to become stone when these same children become adult singles. Singles bashing that reduces singles to lowest part of family unit is discrimination based on marital status and is no different than any other kind of discrimination. Single adults are still the children of someone and deserve to be treated with same dignity and respect as any other child of family unit.

Financial, social and emotional intelligence is not defined by marital status, but rather by each person’s belief systems and what he/she was taught and grew up with. Ideal would be less reliance on marital status in family unit equations, but that will never happen as long as married or coupled persons fail to realize singles also have many stresses, just different kinds of stresses to that of families.

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(This blog is of a general nature about financial discrimination of individuals/singles. It is not intended to provide personal or financial advice.)

FINANCIAL DISCRIMINATION AND SINGLISM

(These thoughts are purely the blunt, no nonsense personal opinions of the author and are not intended to provide personal or financial advice.)

The following excerpts have been taken from two books written by Dr. Bella Depaulo http://belladepaulo.com/blog/. Depaulo is a Professor of Psychology and Project Scientist at the University of California. She has a longstanding interest and expertise in the psychology of deceiving and detecting deceit, a set of research and writings on how we live now, and a true passion for the practice and study of single life. She is the originator of the word ‘singlism’ used to describe discrimination of singles. Excerpts from her two books “Singled Out – How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After” (page 14, 117, 247 and 253-254) and “Singlism – What It Is, Why I Matters, and How to Stop It” (page 88) have been used for this article.

“Singlism is absolutist, contradictory, and utterly unforgiving. By blanketing the entirety of a person’s life until everything is snuffed out, singlism is worse than some of the other isms”. (Depaulo, Bella, Singled out-How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, page 14)

“It takes a village to maintain a village, structurally and interpersonally and couples, singles and children are all a part of it (sic in old times)”. (Depaulo, Bella, Singled Out-How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, page 117).

“The marital mythology takes a relationship that is deeply valuable and deserves to be valued, and turns it into the only relationship that is valued at all…”(Depaulo, Bella, Singled out-How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, page 247)

…”Why should you have to be any kind of couple to qualify for the cornucopia of perks, privileges, and benefits that are currently available exclusively to couples who are married/coupled. I would like to live in a society that is equally respectful and supportive of all its citizens, regardless of whether they are single or married, uncoupled or coupled…i.e. first, fairness. Every citizen is equal under the law…Second, more fairness. As a starting point, every citizen of voting age gets exactly the same amount of everything that government has to offer…Fairness isn’t just for the government. Businesses should not charge married people less than single people for the same products, just as they would not charge whites less than people of color. Same for pay. If two men-one married and one single-do the same job for the same amount of time at the same level of competence, they should get paid the same. And get the same benefits package…my principles do allow for privilege….(i.e. sic Children and people with special needs/low income should be treated differently)…There are some things that are so basic to a decent life that no one should be denied them. Too many single people go without health insurance for health care (sic in USA), and too many singles spend their later years living dangerously close to the financial edge. No one-single or married-should needlessly live in sickness or in poverty…the workplace should be about work. Marital status should not be a factor in allocating benefits…(sic maternity benefits). A cafeteria-style plan, in which all employees get the same dollar value to spend as they wish, is one possibility that seems fair.” (Depaulo, Bella, Singled Out-How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, page 253-254).

“We are all humans. It is time to let our humanity, rather than our marital status, be our qualification for basic dignities such as health care and for equal protection under the law” (sic as well as other things like recreation, library fees, etc. etc.) (Depaulo, Bella, Singlism-What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It, page 88)

The author of this blog has been collecting information on financial discrimination of singles for a number of years. Dr. Bella Depaulo’s studies on the discrimination of singles validates the information described in this blog and confirms that financial discrimination and singlism is alive and well, not only in the USA but also Canada and worldwide.

(This blog is of a general nature about financial discrimination of individuals/singles. It is not intended to provide personal or financial advice).