'Singletons' likely to be old women

We bought Bridget Jones's Diary and watched Sex and the City but it seems the premise of single, female life is a myth.

Columnists and "chick-lit" novelists seized on the fact that the number of one-person households rose from 26 per cent in 1991 to 30 per cent in 2001 as proof that young women no longer needed a man and were increasingly happy to live alone, unlike their mothers.

But the latest census shows that most "singletons" are old women. Of the 6.1 million single householders in England, half are pensioners. Women over 65 make up three-quarters of these and of the other three million, there are three men to every two women.

And forget the idea of the single woman in her smart loft apartment – 70,000 single households do not have their own bathroom.