Living solo at midlife: Can the pandemic de-stigmatize living alone in India?

Abstract

In this piece I argue that the pandemic with its emphasis on social distancing as a desirable civic norm can reconfigure popular understanding of mature female singlehood in India- a condition that is often described in the language of lacks and social failures. The pandemic, I argue, has reaffirmed the everyday practices of upper middle-class professional women (ages 50-60 years) lending them as positive agentic subjects who are invested in self-actualization and an appreciation of intimate solitude. Overall, by specifically focusing on subjectivities and social aspirations of my interlocutors during the pandemic, I illuminate ways in which middle aged selfhood is lived in all its fragility, ambivalence and emergent possibilities.

Keywords: Aging; Covid-19; Gender; Middle-age; Singlehood.