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U.S. ECONOMY

Men Are Now More Likely to

Be Single Than Women. It's
Not a Good Sign

FOTOGRAFIA INC./Getty Images

BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE

OCTOBER 5, 2021 5:51 PM EDT

A lmost a third of adult single men live

with a parent. Single men are much
more likely to be unemployed, financially
fragile and to lack a college degree than
those with a partner. They’re also likely to
have lower median earnings; single men
earned less in 2019 than in 1990, even
adjusting for inflation. Single women,
meanwhile, earn the same as they did 30
years ago, but those with partners have
increased their earnings by 50%.

These are the some of the findings of a new

Pew Research analysis of 2019 data on the
growing gap between American adults who
live with a partner and those who do not.
While the study is less about the effect of
marriage and more about the effect that
changing economic circumstances have had
on marriage, it sheds light on some
unexpected outcomes of shifts in the labor
market.

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Over the same time period that the fortunes

of single people have fallen, the study
shows, the proportion of American adults
who live with a significant other, be it
spouse or unmarried partner, also declined
substantially. In 1990, about 71% of folks
from the age of 25 to 54, which are
considered the prime working years, had a
partner they were married to or lived with.
In 2019, only 62% did.

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Partly, this is because people are taking

longer to establish that relationship. The
median age of marriage is creeping up, and
while now more people live together than
before, that has not matched the numbers of
people who are staying single. But it’s not
just an age shift: the number of older single
people is also much higher than it was in
1990; from a quarter of 40 to 54-year-olds to
almost a third by 2019. And among those 40
to 54-year-olds, one in five men live with a
parent.

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The trend has not had an equal impact

across all sectors of society. The Pew study,
which uses information from the 2019
American Community Survey, notes that
men are now more likely to be single than
women, which was not the case 30 years
ago. Black people are much more likely to be
single (59%) than any other race, and Black
women (62%) are the most likely to be
single of any sector. Asian people (29%) are
the least likely to be single, followed by
whites (33%) and Hispanics (38%).

Most researchers agree that the trendlines

showing that fewer people are getting
married and that those who do are
increasingly better off financially have a lot
more to do with the effect of wealth and
education on marriage than vice versa.
People who are financially stable are just
much more likely to find and attract a
partner.

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“It’s not that marriage is making people be

richer than it used to, it’s that marriage is
becoming an increasingly elite institution,
so that people are are increasingly only
getting married if they already have
economic advantages,” says Philip Cohen, a
professor of sociology at the University of
Maryland, College Park. “Marriage does not
make people change their social class, it
doesn’t make people change their race, and
those things are very big predictors of
economic outcomes.”

This reframing of the issue may explain why

fewer men than women find partners, even
though men are more likely to be looking
for one. The economic pressures on men are
stronger. Research has shown that an ability
to provide financially is still a more prized
asset in men than in women, although the
trend is shifting. Some studies go so far as
to suggest that the 30-year decrease in the
rate of coupling can be attributed largely to
global trade and the 30-year decrease in the
number of stable and well-paying jobs for
American men that it brought with it.

When manufacturing moved overseas, non-

college educated men found it more difficult
to make a living and thus more difficult to
attract a partner and raise a family.

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But there is also evidence that coupling up

improves the economic fortunes of couples,
both men and women. It’s not that they only
have to pay one rent or buy one fridge, say
some sociologists who study marriage, it’s
that having a partner suggests having a
future.

“There’s a way in which marriage makes

men more responsible, and that makes them
better workers,” says University of Virginia
sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox,
pointing to a Harvard study that suggests
single men are more likely than married
men to leave a job before finding another.
The Pew report points to a Duke University
study that suggests that after marriage men
work longer hours and earn more.

There’s also evidence that the decline in

marriage is not just all about being wealthy
enough to afford it. Since 1990, women have
graduated college in far higher numbers
than men.

“The B.A. vs. non B.A. gap has grown

tremendously on lots of things — in terms
of income, in terms of marital status, in
terms of cultural markers and tastes,” says
Cohen. “It’s become a sharper demarcation
over time and I think that’s part of what we
see with regard to marriage. If you want to
lock yourself in a room with somebody for
50 years, you might want to have the same
level of education, and just have more in
common with them.”

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Wilcox agrees: “You get women who are

relatively liberal, having gone to college,
and men who are relatively conservative,
still living in a working class world, and that
can create a kind of political and cultural
divide that makes it harder for people to
connect romantically as well.”

What seems to be clear is that the path to

marriage increasingly runs through college.
While the figures on single men’s declining
economic fortunes are the most sobering,
they are not what surprised the report’s
authors the most. “It’s quite startling how
much the partnered women have now
outpaced single women,” says Richard Fry, a
senior researcher at the Pew Research
Center. “About 43% of partnered women
have completed at least a bachelor’s degree
compared to a third of single women.” He
speculates that women may be going to
college in greater numbers because it helps
them attract a partner in the same way it
helps men. “Not only are they rewarded in
the labor market with higher earnings, but
increasingly, partnership also depends on
educational attainment.”

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