2/9/25
50% of Women Will Soon Be Single
Research consistently shows that single women are happier, live longer, and earn more than their married counterparts.
For most of my twenties, I felt a quiet panic ticking in the background of everything I did.
Not about my career or my goals, but about time and whether I was running out of it. I never questioned why I felt that way.
I just assumed I had to find a partner. That there was a timeline, and I was behind. The idea of being single in my thirties felt like something to avoid at all costs.
It wasn’t until much later that I asked myself the most obvious question of all: What did I even need a partner for? I had never stopped to consider it. I had internalised the pressure so deeply, I forgot to ask whether the destination I was racing toward was one I even wanted.
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By 2030, nearly half of all women are expected to be single. At first glance, this might sound like a crisis, at least according to traditional narratives that still idealise marriage as the ultimate female aspiration.
But dig a little deeper, and this emerging trend tells a very different story. Because, according to the data, single women are thriving.
Research consistently shows that single women are happier, live longer, and earn more than their married counterparts.
The same cannot be said for men. In fact, marriage appears to benefit men far more than it does women.
In heterosexual relationships, women still shoulder the majority of unpaid domestic labour, from cleaning to childcare to emotional support.
Marriage, for many women, has long meant taking on a second unpaid job, one that props up the health, productivity, and success of their husbands at the expense of their own time, energy, and ambitions.
The rise in single women isn’t a rejection of love. It’s a rejection of structural inequality.
For the first time in history, women aren’t being forced into marriage for financial survival or social legitimacy.
Just fifty years ago, a woman in the UK couldn’t open a bank account in her own name without her husband’s permission.
Today, women are earning their own money, building their own careers, and, crucially, making their own decisions about what kind of life they want to live.
That freedom of choice is a game changer. When women are no longer economically or socially dependent on men, they’re free to walk away from relationships that don’t serve them. And increasingly, they are.
That doesn’t mean women are giving up on love.
It means they’re giving up on bad relationships.
And when the choice is between being single and being stuck with a man who expects her to clean, cook, and carry his emotional burdens without offering the same in return, more and more women are choosing themselves.
This shift, while liberating for women, has led to a reckoning for men.
Because when women stop marrying out of obligation, men lose access to something they’ve long taken for granted: the unpaid labour of women. They lose the personal assistant, the therapist, the housekeeper, the caregiver. And without that support structure quietly managing their lives behind the scenes, many men are struggling. Instead of asking why so many women are opting out of marriage, we should be asking why so many men still expect a partner to act like a servant.
When women stop marrying out of obligation, men lose access to something they’ve long taken for granted: the unpaid labour of women.
When women stop marrying out of obligation, men lose access to something they've long taken for granted: the unpaid labour of women
This dynamic is sometimes called "The Tall Girl Problem" the idea that women with more power (financial, educational, emotional) are struggling to “find someone on their level.”
But perhaps it’s not a problem that women are raising their standards.
Perhaps the real problem is that too many men have stopped rising to meet them.
Instead of shaming women for wanting more, we should be asking men why they’re content to offer less.
It’s something I see playing out in my own life.
My female friends who are single are absolutely thriving. They’re building careers, forming deep and lasting friendships, learning new skills, and taking solo trips across the world. Their lives are full of growth and self discovery.
My boyfriend’s single male friends? Not so much. Many are still struggling to find stable jobs, and some haven’t even learned how to clean their own apartment.
Of course, this is a small sample size but it feels like a symptom of something bigger. A generation of women stepping into their power, while many men have been allowed to fall behind.
I’m not anti relationship. I’m pro choice.
To be clear, this isn’t an anti relationship argument. It’s a pro choice one.
No one is saying being single is better than being in a good relationship. But being single is better than being in a relationship that drags you down, drains your resources, and limits your potential. And for the first time, women are widely in a position to make that call and to be applauded for it.
Looking back, I realise that the pressure to find someone was never really about desire.
It was about fear. Fear of being alone, fear of failing at some unspoken test of womanhood, fear of being left behind. But now I see something I didn’t before: being single is not a failure.
It is often an act of power. It is what happens when women no longer need relationships to survive and finally get to choose them instead.
Thank you for reading.
I hope this provoked some thoughts, and I look forward to discussing in the comments.