Single and Ready to Mingle | A Deep Dive into U.S. Singles Statistics | Episode 31

Speaker A: 00:00:02

How many people in the U.S. do you believe are currently single? Hi, welcome back. Or welcome, if you're new here. I'm Wioleta, your host. I'm happy that you're here.

Before we start with this episode, I do want to let you know that I am aware that I do have listeners who are not from the United States.

So I will definitely do another episode where I do an episode about statistics that are about singles all around the world, not just in the U.S. but for the sake of this episode, this one is just about the U.S. singles. So I apologize if you're not from the U.S. okay, so let's get started. So, for the sake of the statistics. And I will attach the links that I used for.

For the statistics that I did find for the sake of this. Single means adults, not married, not living with a partner, not in a committed relationship.

If you know me and you have listened to episode two, which I also highly recommend. If you haven't listened to episode two, go listen to it. It is a very long one because my very first two or three episodes were super long.

But anyhow, I highly recommend listening to episode two. And if you listen to it, I do strongly believe that you are single. Even if you're in a relationship, even if you're living with somebody.

I believe you're single until you're engaged. So these statistics I'm about to read off do not align with my views of what being single is and what it isn't. But anyhow, back to the statistics.

About 30% of all United States singles are single. Well, people are, si.

What I mean by that is about 30% of all US people that live here are single, which is a lot, but also lower than what I thought it was going to be, in a sense. But let's break it down by age groups. So in their 20s, about 47% of people are single, which seems about right. Honestly, that also seems kind of low.

Men in their 20s are more likely to be single than women. So they're estimating that about 60% of men are single when they're in their 20s. And this group peaks because, you know, there's.

Nowadays we marry later, people cohabitate later, people are focused on their careers and education. And it's kind of like a transitional life stage, being in your 20s. And a lot of people are still just having quote, unquote fun.

Now let's look at the 30s. Historically, this is the lowest overall rate of singles.

And I believe that because even right now it feels like I cannot find most people who are in my age bracket who are single.

20, 25% of people under 30s are single, which kind of again seems very high for me because it seems like everybody that I know, besides people from my walking club obviously are still not single and I do live in the suburbs, so that also might have an effect on that.

But yeah, I can definitely confirm because finding someone my age to date is hard with a capital, with a capital H. People in their 30s are more likely to be married or in a stable partnership than younger or older groups. According to what I've been finding 40s, the 40 year olds, 25 to 30% are single, so a tad bit more than people under 30s.

What's interesting is that the never married crowd for the 40 year olds and so people in their midlife have risen compared to decades past with 30% of 40 to 44 year olds never marrying in recent years. And that will probably be me one day unless a miracle happens. And then the 50 and older crowd, 30% or slightly higher percentage of them are single.

And that includes divorced, married and never married. However, for the older generations, they're more likely to be separated due to divorce or, or loss of a partner than never having been married.

Obviously there's going to be some who have never been married, but that's less likely than divorced or widowed or just separated. So overall with the trends, there's definitely a trend of delayed partnerships.

So people marrying later in life and entering long term relationships later too.

Obviously depending on a different life stage, people might want to either stay single or maybe are having a hard time finding somebody because they're so busy, you know, somebody's prioritizing careers or education or travel. They might have a harder time finding somebody to date or they just might not want to be dating at all.

And then in the older adults, there's definitely a larger share of women becoming single later in life too due to longevity and widowhood, which makes sense because women do tend to live longer, at least here in the us. I personally think what's also contributing is money situation, right. Our economy and a lot of people aren't doing so well as far as money goes.

So I think it's harder to date when you don't have money. Take people out.

And of course the male or all around loneliness epidemic, because I do believe it's an all around loneliness epidemic, not just a male loneliness epidemic, because I do think it trickles down to women. If men are lonely and they're not dating, then more women are also going to be not dating.

And I do Believe if you're single long term, that also equals loneliness. Obviously I'm not including the people who are single for like five minutes and then become, you know, and then jump back into relationship.

the last one that went out in: 2020

d. And this is according to a: 2021

hest recorded since the early: 1900

Historically, nearly all adults married by the age of 40, but today one in four 40 year olds had never married, which again checks out. The median ages of first marriages continues to rise.

So more people delay marriage into their 30s and beyond rather than marrying in their 20s, which I think is a positive thing. I always say you should never marry or make any big life term decisions before you turn 30 because you become a different person when you're 30.

It'd be nice to maybe take like a guess if these marriages are, or the lack of marriages is on purpose or because of a lack of options or you know, maybe the perception of too many options because of social media and dating apps. So maybe, maybe I'll run a poll online. And keep in mind, some never married adults do live with their partners, so they cohabitate, others do not.

Again, keep in mind, that's what these numbers are showing. For this episode and it's a short one. Let's go ahead. And for the note to self, think about which of these numbers surprised you the most.

While you're thinking about that, this one's not really like a reflective one, but just. Yeah, which one just surprised you the most?

I'm gonna go ahead and dance because you know me, I love to dance and think everybody should dance once a day at least. If you haven't already, please subscribe or follow the show. I really appreciate you listening, Sam. Okay, I'm back.

So the thing that surprised me the Most was the 25 to 30% of adults in their 40s who have never married. Because I feel like most of the people that I know who are in their 40s and up have at least married once before. Most of them, obviously.

I also know some who haven't, but most of them have. So to me, that is a pretty crazy number.

This is kind of a weird episode because normally I think my episodes are just more reflective, but I figured every now and then we could probably throw in a couple of episodes with just some statistics because I don't think we really talked about, you know, what's considered single, what I consider single, and you know, what are some stats regarding those. But so let's go ahead and finish off.

If you haven't rated my podcast yet, please do me a huge favor and just take like a couple of seconds, minutes, whatever to give me a star rating. And if you're able to actually leave a review, I would truly appreciate. It helps to show this podcast to other people. But either way, always.

As always, thank you for listening to me. So the glow up for this week since there's huge numbers of adults who have never been married.

So if you're like me and you're feeling some type of way about never having been married and kind of quote unquote behind.

But again, as always, even if we're late or right on time, but if you have felt behind all the people in your life who have been married, know that you're not an outlier. Technically, it seems like you are in a massive demographic, at least to the latest statistics.

But so for the actual glow up though, think about this. What if not having been married yet is actually a developmental advantage? What's your developmental advantage due to not having been married yet?

Or if you have been married, think about maybe what yours is since having gotten divorced. What have you learned through being single since being divorced? Thanks so much for listening. I'm going to repeat this again.

Always remember, even if we're late, we're right on time. I will talk to you next Tuesday.