As the family continues to fall apart, a growing segment of the population is poorer and lonelier than they were 30 years ago, according to a new paper published by the Pew Research Center on Tuesday.
Almost 40% of adults age 25 to 54 lived alone in 2019, according to Pew, compared to just 29% in 1990. “The growth in the single population is driven mainly by the decline in marriage,” Pew explained before further noting that unpartnered adults generally have lower earnings, are less likely to be employed, and have worse health outcomes than partnered adults.
Unpartnered men are fairing particularly worse compared to married men, married women, and even unpartnered women. Where 37% of partnered men have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 43% of partnered women and 33% of unpartnered women, just 26% of unpartnered men have a degree.
Additionally, while 91% of partnered men have a job, as do 77% of partnered and 74% of unpartnered women, just 73% of unpartnered men are employed.
Earlier research by Pew indicates that these single people are not single by choice. A 2019 poll found that 67% of single men and 61% of single women age 18-39 were looking for a romantic partner.
But the two sexes had very different reasons why they couldn’t find a partner.
For women, the vast majority said a leading reason they were still single was that it is “hard to find someone who meets their expectations.”
For men, the most common reason they said they were still single was that it is “hard for them to approach people.” Single men are also twice as likely as single women to say that “feeling like no one would be interested in dating them” is a major reason they weren’t looking to date.
Unfortunately, earlier research also shows that as fewer get married, young men suffer the most. Boys from single-parent households are more likely to have discipline problems in school, less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to go to college, and less likely to have a job compared to both girls from single-parent households and boys from married households.
This means that as marriage declines, more men will be raised in single-parent households, and these men will in turn be less likely to “meet the expectations” of single women, thus leading to even less marriage and even more unmarriable men.
The family is in crisis. It is getting worse. And it is far past time our leaders started doing something about it.
