单身经济:一个值得关注的新经济现象

Single Economy: a New Economic Phenomenon Worthy of Attention

单身经济的兴起是现代化和人口变化的必然结果。快速增长且以年轻人为主体的单身群体促发了新的消费模式。在单身经济消费模式下,同一消费品或服务的决策者、购买者和使用者在大多数情况下是统一的,消费者的独立性、自主性和个性化明显,具有消费倾向高、时间预算宽松、市场依赖程度高等特点,而单身经济则呈现市场更加细化、产品微型化和服务专门化、消费品更新换代速度快、关联消费弹性大等特征。准确把握单身经济的特点和发展趋势,不仅要厘清单身经济及其消费群体的基本内涵,理解单身经济兴起的人口学动因和社会文化基础,还要将单身经济嵌入中国情境和社会变迁的整体结构中理解。从现代化和人口变化的趋势看,中国的单身经济具有巨大的发展潜力。

The rise of single economy is the inevitable result of modernization and change in population structure. The rapid growth of the single population, especially among the young, promotes a new consumption pattern. Under the single economic consumption model, the decision makers, buyers and users of the same goods or services are unified in most cases. Consumers are highly independent and individualized with high consumption tendency, loose time budget and high dependence on market. On the other hand, the single economy is characterized by a more refined market, miniaturization of products and specialization of services, fast updating of goods and great elasticity of associated consumption. To accurately grasp the characteristics and development trend of the single economy, we should not only clarify the basic definition of the single economy and its consumer groups, understand the demographic motivation and social and cultural basis of the rise of the single economy, but also embed the single economy in the overall structure of the Chinese situation and social changes for interpretation. Judging from the trend of modernization and population change, China’s single economy has great development potential.