Women are choosing to stay single for longer than ever, the report says.
Without the expense of children, the constraints of a husband or, in many cases, the worry of a mortgage, they are unabashedly spending up big on themselves. They are more likely to be spending money on clothes, beauty products, late model small cars and going out than past generations. Mobile phones are the compulsory social accessory in organising social lives and as a flirting aid, with the text-messaging function being used to date and exchange messages with men. In Britain, a chain of designer pubs featuring leather lounges and tables with handbag hooks has opened across the country to cash in on the female market. In most industrialised nations, women are well into their 20s before they marry, if at all.