What's Behind the Record-Setting Rise of Single Living

Over the past half-century or so, the U.S. has been transformed from a very married nation to a place in which married people are teetering on the edge of becoming a minority. Whether we look at the number (or percentage) who are not married, the number who have never been married, or the number who are living alone, the trends are remarkable, and sometimes record-setting.

If You're Unmarried, Are You in the Minority?

According to the most recent Census Bureau statistics on marital status, it is married people, not unmarried, who are in the minority—they account for 49 percent of people 15 and older. The other 51 percent—136.3 million people—are divorced, widowed, or separated, or they have always been single (never married).

I prefer marital status statistics that start counting at age 18 instead of 15. Over the past few years, though, the Census Bureau no longer shows those numbers in its key table (Table A1 on marital status). When those data were available, the trend was flipped, with just over half of adults 18 and older who were married, and just under half who were not married. Either way, being single (unmarried) in the U.S. today is totally ordinary.

Of all those adults 15 and older who are not married, two-thirds of them have never been married.

Percent of all unmarried in the U.S. who are:

• Widowed: 11 percent
• Divorced: 19 percent
• Separated: 3 percent
• Always single (never married): 67 percent

Are You Around 30 and Never Been Married?

If you are around the age of 30 and have never been married, you share that status with about half of the people your age. For men in 2023, the median age at which they first married was 30.2; that means that about half of men who were marrying for the first time were 30 or older. Women were a little younger; their median age when they first married was 28.4.

These numbers are particularly remarkable when compared to the year at which people in the U.S. married at the earliest age, in records dating back to 1890. That year was 1956. Women were just 20.1 when they first married; that means that about half of them were teenagers! Men were a little older at 22.5.

On average, today’s young adults have an additional 8 years of unmarried life than their peers from 1956. (And of course, that’s only for those who do marry. Those who never marry have a whole lifetime of being single.) Think how different the experience of young adulthood is likely to be for those who are already married in their very early twenties compared to those who are unmarried as they approach 30.

Are You Around 40 and Never Been Married?

In the U.S. today, it is not unusual to be about to turn 40 and have never been married. In the most recent data, from 2023, more than a quarter of adults between the ages of 35 and 44 had never been married (26 percent). For men, that percentage was even higher (29 percent); for women, it was lower (22 percent).

Do You Live Alone?

If you live alone, you share that experience with more than 38 million other adults in the U.S. (In this Census Bureau table—Table AD-3, Living arrangements, 2023—numbers are for people 18 and older.) That’s a record number. As a percentage of all people 18 and older, it is a shade lower than it was the year before—14.8 percent in 2023, compared to 14.9 percent in 2022).

In 1967 (the earliest year reported in the table), only about 9 million adults in the U.S. lived alone. That was just 7.8 percent of all adults 18 and older.

Although 38 million people living alone is a huge number, it is far less than the total number of unmarried people. (It also includes an unknown number of married people living alone, apart from their spouse.) Most single (unmarried) people do not live alone—unless they are single at heart. The single at heart love their solitude, and just over half live alone.

Singlehood Essential Reads

4 Good Reasons to Spend Some Time Alone

Single at Heart: What It Is and Is Not

Another way to think about how common it is to live alone is to consider different kinds of households. If you live alone, do you think your household is unusual—not like those households comprised of married couples and their children? Think of it this way: If you were to wander around the U.S., knocking on doors at random, how often would you find one person living there, and how often would you find a nuclear family (married parents and their kids)?

In 1970, you would be more than twice as likely to find nuclear family households than households comprised of one person: 40 percent of all households were comprised of married couples with children and 17 percent were people living alone.

Now, that’s flipped. In 2023, there were far more households comprised of one person living alone (30 percent) than married couples living with kids (18 percent).

Unmarried America

In 2003, Business Week ran a cover story titled "Unmarried America.” In the following 20 years, the number and percentage of unmarried Americans have continued to grow. Nonetheless, the U.S. is still a very marriage-oriented society, with laws, policies, language, and norms very much reflective of the desires and perspectives of people who are married. After all, no one asks married people, “When are you going to get single?” or “Why are you still married?”

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