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Data

Percentage of adults living alone

About this data

Source
US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada (2019) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
November 15, 2019
Date range
1967–2018
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada – Percentage of adults living alone in the US and Canada

Data for the United States corresponds to population aged 18 and over. Data for Canada corresponds to population aged 15 and over.

Retrieved on
November 15, 2019
Retrieved from
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00003-eng.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
US Census Bureau; Tan, Galbraith, and Truong (2019), Statistics Canada. Percentage of adults living alone in the US and Canada.

Data for the United States corresponds to population aged 18 and over. Data for Canada corresponds to population aged 15 and over.

Retrieved on
November 15, 2019
Retrieved from
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00003-eng.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
US Census Bureau; Tan, Galbraith, and Truong (2019), Statistics Canada. Percentage of adults living alone in the US and Canada.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Percentage of adults living alone”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/adults-living-alone.html [online resource] (archived on May 11, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada (2019) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada (2019) – processed by Our World in Data. “Percentage of adults living alone” [dataset]. US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada, “Percentage of adults living alone in the US and Canada” [original data]. Retrieved May 11, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260511-092124/grapher/adults-living-alone.html (archived on May 11, 2026).

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