From Singles’ Day to the singles tax: the economics of flying solo

Marina Karpathios
02:00pm November 12 2026

The world's largest shopping event, Singles’ Day, started as a celebration of being romantically unattached. But what is the cost of flying solo? (Image: Pexels)

If “treat yo' self” had an official holiday, Singles’ Day would surely take the crown.

Celebrated on 11 November, or 11/11, the date is a visual nod to singledom, a string of ones standing side by side. According to cultural lore, the unofficial holiday was conceived in the early 90s by four young bachelors in China as a playful antidote to Valentine’s Day, a chance for the unattached to celebrate themselves in lieu of a significant other.

That is until retail got involved. Singles’ Day has since been commercialised to the nth degree, becoming one of the world’s biggest shopping events, more synonymous with sales than relationship status.

Spotting its meaty commercial potential, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba turned the holiday mainstream with a 24-hour blitz of online discounts on Nov 11 2009, thereby successfully searing 11/11 into cultural consciousness as an annual consumption frenzy à la Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Behind the event's famed discounts, there's a niggling economic question: what does it actually cost to be single? 

Expenses like rent, household bills and travel immediately spring to mind. Economists recognise much of it as a question of economies of scale, or the savings that come from sharing cost. 

In online discourse, it's referred to by a pithier moniker: the “singles tax”. The colloquial term is used to broadly refer to the various financial burdens that single people must manage, when compared to those coupled up or married.

And there are plenty of Australians absorbing said costs alone.

Australia had around 2.5 million one-person households at the 2021 Census, meaning roughly one in four are flying solo. That was up from around one in five three decades earlier. ABS projections see these numbers only continuing to grow.

Whether single by choice, chance or circumstance, living on one income can change the economics of everyday life.

The maths of flying solo 

Anyone who has organised a group holiday knows that adding people often lowers the per-person price. Split the cost of a hire car four ways instead of one and the individual savings are obvious. 

The same principle holds at home. Economists call it economies of scale - costs can be shared between more people without rising at the same rate. Two people need more groceries than one, for example, but can share the rent, internet and household bills.

The ABS accounts for this when comparing living standards. Its measure of equivalised household income assumes a two-adult household needs around 1.5 times the income of someone living alone to achieve a similar standard of living, rather than twice as much.

The financial divide is often clearest in housing, where rent, saving for a deposit and servicing a mortgage can weigh more heavily on one income, particularly during periods of high inflation.

The premium can follow singles on holiday, too. Accommodation is often priced per room rather than per guest, while tours may sting solo travellers with a 'single supplement fee' - an extra, penalising charge for the privilege of joining an activity that vendors assume two people will share.

The rise of the solo economy

There is another side to the “singles tax”. As more people live alone, there is also more money to be made catering to them.

The broader demographics are changing, too. Australians are marrying later, households are getting smaller and solo households are becoming more common. The trend spans generations, from older Australians living independently after separation or bereavement to younger adults delaying, or rethinking, traditional milestones such as marriage, children and home ownership.

Culture and commerce are adjusting in turn. Solo travel has become a distinct tourism market, while experiences and products designed for one reflect an economy alert to the purchasing power of people living alone. Online, “solo dates” sit alongside the rise of acronyms such as DINK, shorthand for the financial advantages of a dual-income, no kids household.

Singles’ Day is one - albeit extreme - expression of this commercial shift, a celebration of singledom morphed into a global shopping event.

Herein lies a mismatch at the heart of the solo economy. People living alone are an increasingly valuable consumer market, yet many of the basic economics of everyday life still favour households that can share costs.

As one-person households become more common, how quickly will an economy built around shared costs adapt to millions more paying their own way?

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