Party of One: How single women stack up in the US economy

Summary

For decades, marriage was the most common household structure for women. It has long-shaped women's relationship with the job market and helped propel wealth, in part from married men being the highest income earners of any group and, in more recent decades, through dual-income households. More broadly, the union brought economies of scale that made large expenditures like housing easier to achieve. But there has been a gradual shift in household structure taking place in the United States. Now, more than half of women are single. The change is rippling across the economy and leaving a mark on the labor market, wealth and spending.

A record 52% of women were unmarried or separated in 2021. The rising share of single women households has been driven entirely by women who have never married. Due to women increasingly pushing back marriage or forgoing it all together, the number of never-married women has grown a staggering 20% over the past decade.

Single women are providing an outsized lift to the labor force. The number of never-married women in the labor force has grown three times faster than the broader labor pool over the past decade. The rapid increase stems from never-married women's growing ranks, but also larger gains in labor force participation compared to other groups, including never-married men.

Despite single women becoming increasingly important to the workforce, the pay gap between single men and women persists. Never-married women working full time earned 92.1% of what never-married men earned in 2022, down from 95.8% a decade prior. Meantime, the pay gap between separated, divorced and widowed women and men has been stuck in a narrow range since the Great Recession.

Lower earnings create an uphill battle for single women to build wealth. Median wealth among single women was 18% lower than single men in 2019. The wealth gap widens to 29% among never-married women, even when controlling for factors like age, education, homeownership and children.

Weaker earnings and wealth lead single women to spend less than single men and the average household. The rate of spending growth for single women has kept pace with broad expenditure gains over the past decade, but this growing group spends differently. Single women devote a higher share of outlays to necessities like housing and healthcare, while over the past decade, expenditures on education and food away from home have grown faster than those of single men.

Overall, single women are becoming an increasingly influential part of the American economy. At a time when employers are struggling to hire and are facing anemic growth in the labor force ahead, the rising number of never-married women, who have higher labor force participation than currently or previously married women, are helping to fill the void. With more women on their own, singles are also a growing consumer segment.

But single women's increased influence in the jobs market has yet to improve the pay picture relative to men. With little to no progress on the pay gap over the past decade, it remains difficult for single women to save and invest, which keeps them in a more precarious financial position than their married or male counterparts. Narrowing these gaps is important for the financial security of a growing segment of the U.S. population, which could help support businesses with a significant single women customer base.

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