Speaker 1: Yoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Cost of
Speaker 2: living has hit many families around the country hard. But
Speaker 2: what about the singles out there? From booking holidays to
Speaker 2: having a roof over your head, there's often an additional
Speaker 2: cost of doing life alone. Research shows that for people
Speaker 2: aged twenty five to forty nine, those who are singles
Speaker 2: spend fourteen percent more than their coupled counterparts. It's been
Speaker 2: dubbed the singles tax. And while it's gaining more traction
Speaker 2: in the mainstream, lowering costs for the partner lists is
Speaker 2: not an easy task, simplicity. Chief economist Chamabel Yakub has
Speaker 2: crunched the numbers on this and he joins us now
Speaker 2: on the front page. Shamma Belle, it's no surprise that
Speaker 2: doing life alone is more expensive, but can you tell
Speaker 2: me exactly how much more it costs to be single?
Speaker 3: So for a young person, on average, it costs about
Speaker 3: seventy dollars more to be single than a coupled up.
Speaker 2: Here, that's a week, oh my god. And so what
Speaker 2: does the bulk of a single person's income go towards.
Speaker 3: Well, the biggest difference is actually on rent and utility.
Speaker 3: So if you think about it, when you're coupling up,
Speaker 3: you might still have a one two bedroom house, but
Speaker 3: you're sharing it across two people. But for a single person,
Speaker 3: you still need that one house and you still need
Speaker 3: the same amount of electricity and things like that. So
Speaker 3: it's really around housing and those utilities that we use
Speaker 3: in the home that affects younger people and single people more.
Speaker 2: And some might say, well, only one mouth to feed,
Speaker 2: but getting one steak versus a pack of two or
Speaker 2: four is far more expensive. Hey, and I love the
Speaker 2: thought of cost go, but me as a single person,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to get through a twenty five kilogram
Speaker 2: bag of rice, am I.
Speaker 3: Man, it's a lot of rise, right, So you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3: There's no economies of scale, so you know, that's a
Speaker 3: very economistic term. But essentially, when you've got more people
Speaker 3: you can afford to buy those bigger bug items sometimes
Speaker 3: they're cheaper, so you really do have to shop more carefully.
Speaker 3: But we don't actually see a massive difference in the
Speaker 3: cost of food, so on a per person basis, you know,
Speaker 3: we don't spend a lot more depending on age, But
Speaker 3: we tend to see a bit of difference when it
Speaker 3: comes to older people in particular, because older people who
Speaker 3: are living alone tend to have a lot less income,
Speaker 3: so they're just poorer unfortunately, and as a result, they
Speaker 3: have to spend less because they can't afford it.
Speaker 2: I saw a survey in the US a few years
Speaker 2: ago found an unmarried person could pay as much as
Speaker 2: a million dollars more in their lifetime than their married friends.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that.
Speaker 3: Look, it's a couple of things, right. The first is
Speaker 3: around the income that's possible. So when you've got two
Speaker 3: of you together working towards something, it can mean that
Speaker 3: you have more income available. So first you maximize your income.
Speaker 3: And the second is around the kinds of things that
Speaker 3: you're able to do. You're able to save more money
Speaker 3: because you've got double income quite often and the housing
Speaker 3: costs are not so high, so there's more leftover at
Speaker 3: the end of the week. And then there's those little
Speaker 3: things like we talked about, the you know, giant packs
Speaker 3: of rice or meat or whatever, where you can get
Speaker 3: those additional incremental savings regularly. So there is a cost
Speaker 3: of being single. But I think we shouldn't think about
Speaker 3: only the costs. There are also some benefits to being single.
Speaker 2: What are those?
Speaker 3: Well, sometimes you might just want a little bit of
Speaker 3: peace and quiet to be yourself, right and not everybody.
Speaker 3: For example, if you're not in a committed relationship, you
Speaker 3: may not want have to have flatmates, right. And so
Speaker 3: I remember when I lived in Melbourne, I chose to
Speaker 3: live alone, even there was more expensive, because you know,
Speaker 3: I had a busy job, I was seeing a lot
Speaker 3: of people through the day and coming home, I wanted
Speaker 3: to have a sanctuary that was my own. So there
Speaker 3: are things like that that gives you the sense of independence,
Speaker 3: quiet solitude that can be quite powerful for a lot
Speaker 3: of people. But there's a cost to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have seen surveys and I can't remember which
Speaker 2: ones exactly, but single people, especially later in life, don't
Speaker 2: they have better mental health?
Speaker 3: Typically we tend to find coupled up older people have
Speaker 3: better mental health. So people on their own do tend
Speaker 3: to suffer a little bit more from loneliness, but not
Speaker 3: always right. It's like anything, you know, if you're cooped
Speaker 3: up with somebody who's not very nice to you, then
Speaker 3: it's terrible, but you know this is being single in
Speaker 3: that instance is better. But generally speaking, companionship whether through
Speaker 3: a partnership or with friends and family that's close to you,
Speaker 3: even if it's not in the same home, can make
Speaker 3: a big difference. And loneliness, of course, is one of
Speaker 3: the biggest challenges that's facing older people in New Zealand today,
Speaker 3: but increasingly also younger people who are feeling more isolated
Speaker 3: from the society.
Speaker 4: So okay, here's the thing. I went to read it
Speaker 4: because Reddit has all the answers right, and they said,
Speaker 4: what are some ways to save money for single And
Speaker 4: they said, get a library card because a library is
Speaker 4: free and libraries have free activities to potentially meet somebody
Speaker 4: an educated person there too, and then maybe you solve
Speaker 4: your singles.
Speaker 5: From absolutely and keep in mind to today couples will
Speaker 5: be spending wasting hundreds of dollars on each other, so
Speaker 5: there is wat this is your day to save more.
Speaker 5: Potentially treat yourself though if you want to. If you're not,
Speaker 5: you know, hanging out with a significant other, treat yourself
Speaker 5: a little bit, because we know that you needed to
Speaker 5: make more to be comfortable now, so you know, do
Speaker 5: that wisely. Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2: So what about in retirement do single people have less
Speaker 2: than couples when it comes to hanging out? The work
Speaker 2: boots a.
Speaker 3: Little bit, so it is quite expensive for very old people.
Speaker 3: Quite often it's because you're not able to share a load.
Speaker 3: So again it's really housing costs and the cost of
Speaker 3: care that really pushes things up. So unfortunately, there is
Speaker 3: this kind of this penalty of being single where you
Speaker 3: just don't have the economies of scale when it comes
Speaker 3: to housing and utilities, and so there's there's a little
Speaker 3: bit of a bit of a challenge there for older people.
Speaker 3: And of course, as you know, we have a lot
Speaker 3: more single older people as your partner passes away before
Speaker 3: the other one. And of course we're also seeing those
Speaker 3: at the margin more marriages breaking up later on in life.
Speaker 3: So there's lots of reasons why we're seeing lots more
Speaker 3: people living alone in older ages.
Speaker 2: And there are so many too. For one deals that
Speaker 2: I see there are cheaper holiday packages, single rooms cost
Speaker 2: more than doubles. Car insurance companies give discounts for more
Speaker 2: than one vehicle, and Uber eights always have deals buy
Speaker 2: one curry and get another free, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: It seems like there's no winning for singles out there.
Speaker 3: I reckon it's coming though. So while it is still
Speaker 3: the case that we have larger families still being the
Speaker 3: dominant part of our societies, over the course of the
Speaker 3: coming decade, we're going to see the fastest growing groups
Speaker 3: being singles in couples, and so as we see the
Speaker 3: number of people living alone increased massively, I think the
Speaker 3: marketers are going to tip into that group of people
Speaker 3: as long as they're buying enough stuff. So I think
Speaker 3: you're right. Right now, we're not seeing marketers really looking
Speaker 3: into this massive market of single people who are ready
Speaker 3: to consume things. But we will see that change over
Speaker 3: the coming decades because their demographic tie. It is turning already,
Speaker 3: and we will see it pick up pace quite considerably.
Speaker 2: And I es, buying your own home seems impossible for
Speaker 2: a single person unless you're out there having no fue
Speaker 2: and eating plane rice and tuna for breakfast and lunch
Speaker 2: and dinner. How can a single person do it alone?
Speaker 3: Look, it is hard. It's hard for everybody, and it's
Speaker 3: even harder for singles, mainly because it's harder for them
Speaker 3: to save because compared to a couple who are on
Speaker 3: comparable incomes. If there's two of them, they will have
Speaker 3: just more money left over at the end of the week,
Speaker 3: So that inability to save means it's harder to get
Speaker 3: to the deposit. Once you get the deposit, it's a
Speaker 3: lot of your income that might be going towards your home.
Speaker 3: You know, some of the strategies that we're seeing coming
Speaker 3: out at the moment is a lot of younger people
Speaker 3: who are single are borrowing from their mom and dad
Speaker 3: to be able to put in the deposit. They're taking
Speaker 3: on housemates to be able to afford it. So they're
Speaker 3: not ideal solutions, but those are the kinds of strategies
Speaker 3: that people are dealing with given just how difficult it
Speaker 3: is to get into the housing market.
Speaker 2: I interviewed brookvie Velden last year about workplace law changes,
Speaker 2: including paternity leave, and I do think I stunned her
Speaker 2: into silence by suggesting a type of paternity leave for
Speaker 2: single people. Given the changing landscape now, the universal idea
Speaker 2: of that nuclear family from the fifties is kind of
Speaker 2: just getting dimmer and dimmer. Should we start talking about
Speaker 2: entitle tments for perhaps single and or childless workers as well.
Speaker 1: So are you suggesting the government pays for people who
Speaker 1: don't have children to have a form of.
Speaker 2: Leave. I mean, it's a conversation starter.
Speaker 1: Look, I don't think that's where this government is going.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting concept. I think it's the first time
Speaker 1: that's been raised with me.
Speaker 2: But do you think the government should be looking at
Speaker 2: things to help ease the cost of living for single people?
Speaker 2: What about the government bring in some kind of single
Speaker 2: person home grount or something like that to help, because
Speaker 2: we know millennials and Gen z they're partnering later in
Speaker 2: life if at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think it's it's that what's the ideal
Speaker 3: state of households in New Zealand versus what the reality is.
Speaker 3: I think in our mind it's still that nuclear family
Speaker 3: with mom, dad, to kids and a dog, right, But
Speaker 3: that's not really the reality of how New Zealand lives anymore.
Speaker 3: So our policies, our settings, the things that we're trying
Speaker 3: to do are very focused around that nuclear family unit,
Speaker 3: except of course, what we've got is that you know,
Speaker 3: younger people coupling up later, older people living singly or couplely.
Speaker 3: There's all the kind of wider issues of housing affordability
Speaker 3: and the cost of living, and our welfare system or
Speaker 3: our system of supporting each other isn't really taking that
Speaker 3: into account. Now. I don't know for sure if we
Speaker 3: should have a specific policy for singles, but certainly I
Speaker 3: think we should have welfare that gives everybody dignity in life.
Speaker 3: And when people are not able to afford the basics
Speaker 3: in life and have a reasonable standard of living, what
Speaker 3: we see is that people become disconnected and discomfited, and
Speaker 3: we see anger in society and in our politics. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying it's caused by singles, but what I'm saying
Speaker 3: is that when we feel like, because of where we
Speaker 3: are in a life, somehow we can't participate in the
Speaker 3: things that are normal for New Zealand, that's really troubling
Speaker 3: and I feel like that is starting to happen.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of countries around the world are
Speaker 2: offering more tax benefits to adults who have more children. Hungry,
Speaker 2: for example, has launched a tax exemption for mothers who
Speaker 2: have two or more children. Is it fair to say
Speaker 2: that governments prefer us to have children grow the population
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we've seen around the world over many, many years,
Speaker 3: many decades, efforts to try and encourage people to have
Speaker 3: more children. None of them have worked, so it's just
Speaker 3: a complete and utter waste of money. It might help
Speaker 3: those families who have children, but actually none of these
Speaker 3: policies have proven to increase fertility rates, so it's good
Speaker 3: money after that. I think it'd be much better if
Speaker 3: we just properly spend money on childcare and education and
Speaker 3: things like that, and actually just made it easier for
Speaker 3: women in particular to be able to take time off
Speaker 3: for work if they needed to care for their families,
Speaker 3: and for elderly people, because it's those kinds of issues
Speaker 3: that are much bigger issues.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It's not that we're coupling up later because we don't
Speaker 3: want to have kids. It's because everything just costs so
Speaker 3: damn much that we have to spend many years to
Speaker 3: progrisinal careers before we can afford those things. So look,
Speaker 3: absolutely we're seeing those policies around the world to try
Speaker 3: and increase fertility rates, but I can tell you of
Speaker 3: all the reviews that I have seen, they don't work.
Speaker 2: And I guess back to life being hard when you're single.
Speaker 2: If you're single and you lose your job, you lose
Speaker 2: one hundred percent of your income, right, but if you're
Speaker 2: living with a partner, you lose part of it. That
Speaker 2: puts added pressure on single people high on top of
Speaker 2: everything else, exactly, you.
Speaker 3: Just have less room to maneuver. And I think that's
Speaker 3: that wider thing of you know, I'm not again, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to tell you to couple up with somebody
Speaker 3: who's not suitable. But having a partner or friends or
Speaker 3: family or wider network who can support you through those
Speaker 3: hard times is really helpful. And we tend to kind
Speaker 3: of focus on the immediate family for those kinds of things. Particularly,
Speaker 3: I think in mainstream society when you look at Mari
Speaker 3: and Pacifica in particular, or even in Asian communities, we
Speaker 3: do see a lot more of community help in terms
Speaker 3: of those informal networks being much stronger. But we have
Speaker 3: lost a lot of that in New Zealand because you know,
Speaker 3: the deal when we built the welfare state was that
Speaker 3: you don't need to maintain those other things because the
Speaker 3: government's got you. But of course we know that things
Speaker 3: like welfare and other things, you know, there's a stand
Speaker 3: down period you have to wait and if you're a
Speaker 3: single person and there is no one to support you,
Speaker 3: it becomes really troubling. And also the challenge, of course
Speaker 3: is that, as you know, in a lot of the
Speaker 3: poverty in New Zealand is amongst our working people. You know,
Speaker 3: we have this big issue of the working poor in
Speaker 3: New Zealand where if you're working in jobs that are
Speaker 3: precarious in terms of hours and pay, then it is
Speaker 3: really hard when something happens. So it's that inability to
Speaker 3: make things work for yourself. So the solution to that,
Speaker 3: of course is to have some precautionary savings if you can,
Speaker 3: so always have a little bit of a thing on
Speaker 3: the side, because life happens and you need to be
Speaker 3: prepared and you can't always rely on somebody else.
Speaker 2: And is it an issue of high rent prices as well?
Speaker 2: I mean, how much of a single person's income only
Speaker 2: goes towards rent?
Speaker 3: Yeah, quite a big check. And that's where the big
Speaker 3: difference is because if you think about it, if there
Speaker 3: is a you know, we're comparing a couple of similar
Speaker 3: you know, two similar incomes and one person living on
Speaker 3: their own. They might be renting the same type of
Speaker 3: let's one bedroom apartment and the cost will be the same,
Speaker 3: but one is spread across two incomes and for the
Speaker 3: single person they're sharing the whole load. And so on average,
Speaker 3: the typical kind of rent in New Zealand versus the
Speaker 3: typical wage in New Zealand is roughly around forty percent.
Speaker 3: So if you're living alone, then you know you're spending
Speaker 3: forty percent of the income minimum to kind of be
Speaker 3: able to afford your home. Whereas it there's two of you,
Speaker 3: you might be able to afford a better place, or
Speaker 3: you might be able to spend a lot less of
Speaker 3: your combined income on your house. And that is the
Speaker 3: housing is the big one. There is just no economist
Speaker 3: a scale when it comes to splitting a house.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, couples who choose to get married get
Speaker 2: a financial assist by the way of cashing gifts from
Speaker 2: wedding guests. Right, is it time to make getting married
Speaker 2: to yourself popular so I can set up a registry?
Speaker 3: Do you think you're still going to get the gifts
Speaker 3: and things?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what i'd hope for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I don't know. I think it's a very
Speaker 3: novel idea and we should give it a go and
Speaker 3: see what happens.
Speaker 2: Well, there's also that, I guess stigma towards how single
Speaker 2: people spend their money as well. Hey, I remember an
Speaker 2: episode of Sex in the City where carries Minola and
Speaker 2: Dolani's got stolen at her friend's house. When she asked
Speaker 2: her mate to pay for them, she said it's irresponsible
Speaker 2: for carry to spend hundreds of dollars on shoes and refuses.
Speaker 2: But then she adds up all the money she spent
Speaker 2: on her friend over the years, from baby showers to
Speaker 2: bachelorette parties, and decided to make her foot the bill anyway,
Speaker 2: don't forgives. I mean, if you.
Speaker 5: Got married or had a child, she spend the same
Speaker 5: on you.
Speaker 2: And if I don't ever get married or have a baby,
Speaker 2: what I get? Bob kiss think about it.
Speaker 4: If you are single after graduation, there isn't one occasion
Speaker 4: where people celebrate you. We are birthdays.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, we all have birthdays. That's awash
Speaker 2: I am talking about the single galp.
Speaker 4: Hallmark doesn't make a congratulations you didn't marry the wrong
Speaker 4: guide card?
Speaker 2: And where's the flatwear for going on vacation alone? I
Speaker 2: guess what I'm trying to get at is is it
Speaker 2: fair that single people get chastised for the way that
Speaker 2: they spend their money?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not, absolutely not. I think how you choose you
Speaker 3: choose to spend your money is up to you, and
Speaker 3: I think there is a lot of judgment that happens regardless.
Speaker 3: I just put out a survey on social cohesion in
Speaker 3: New Zone and one of the things that really comes
Speaker 3: through in that is the stereotyping that we do and
Speaker 3: the projection that we do our own values and preferences
Speaker 3: to other people. And that's really unfair. Right when we
Speaker 3: are dealing with somebody else, we should be curious to
Speaker 3: understand where they're coming from, rather than try to convert
Speaker 3: them to our way of being. You know, the whole
Speaker 3: beauty of this world is not because everybody's like you.
Speaker 3: It's because people are different, and we like being around
Speaker 3: people who are different to us. That's where the joy
Speaker 3: comes from.
Speaker 2: So, Chama Belle, let's have a little brainstorm. What are
Speaker 2: some discounts or I guess government interventions that would benefit
Speaker 2: single childless people.
Speaker 3: Do you think, well, I think it's really thinking about
Speaker 3: whether or not the way that we think about what
Speaker 3: kind of households need A lot of support right at
Speaker 3: the moment, it's very geared to as families. I understand
Speaker 3: why we should invest in children, that's fine, But the
Speaker 3: fact that there is a high cost of being single
Speaker 3: is currently reflected in things like the New Zealand super
Speaker 3: but not in many of the other types of assistance
Speaker 3: that's out there. So we should really try and think
Speaker 3: very carefully about are we helping those people who really
Speaker 3: need it, or are we helping people that we think
Speaker 3: morally and values wise, that we think are more deserving
Speaker 3: than of others. Now, there is no reason why single
Speaker 3: people should be stigmatized just because that's not our model
Speaker 3: view of a New Zealand family looks like, because that
Speaker 3: is simply not true anymore.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Jammer Belle, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Speaker 2: Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 2: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines,