Living Alone is Not "Hollow": Self-construction and Identity Adjustment of Empty Nest Youth

Li Wei^*

 School of Political Science and Law, University of Jinan

Abstract：

With the advancement of urbanization, empty nest youth groups continue to grow, and society generally forms a stereotype of " empty nest and hollow. " However, in reality, young people living alone can still maintain a positive self-state, and empty nests are not necessarily hollow. This study finds that empty-nest youth mainly face identity dilemmas such as ambiguous role positioning, derailment anxiety brought by the social clock, situational loneliness and intergenerational identity contradictions. To this end, they carry out the practice of multiple self-construction : stabilizing the order through the sense of life ritual, shaping the growth narrative based on professional input, constructing selective social interaction to achieve solitude, beautifying the solitary life with self-pleasing consumption, and reconstructing the narrative to regard solitude as a stage of life of independent choice. This kind of practice belongs to Giddens’ reflective planning, which helps young people adjust their self-identity and adapt to uncertainty between freedom and loneliness. This study reveals the active subject experience of empty nest youth, provides empirical support for the study of modern self-identity, and also helps to break the one-sided cognition of " empty nest is a problem".

Key Words：

empty nest youth ; self-identity ; reflective self-construction ; identity adjustmen