“National Singles Week” was started by the Buckeye Singles
Council in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate single life and recognize
singles and their contributions to society. The week is now widely observed
during Sept. 19-25 as “Unmarried and Single Americans Week,”
an acknowledgment that many unmarried Americans do not identify with
the word “single” because they are parents, have partners
or are widowed.
Singleness
95.7 million
Number of unmarried and single Americans. This group comprises 43 percent
of all U.S. residents age 15 and over. <http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=100621288252>
54%
Percentage of unmarried and single Americans who are women. <http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=100621288252>
63%
Percentage of unmarried and single Americans who have never been married.
Another 23 percent are divorced, and 14 percent are widowed. <http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=100621288252>
14.5 million
Number of unmarried and single Americans age 65 and over. These older
Americans comprise 15 percent of all unmarried and single people. <http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=101211465067>
50%
Percentage of adults in New York who are unmarried, the highest rate
of any state. <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001489.html>
27%
Percentage of formerly married people (widowed, separated or divorced)
in Gary, Ind.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Clearwater, St. Petersburg and
Hollywood, Fla. These cities are among cities of 100,000 or more residents
with the highest rates of formerly married people.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001489.html>
86
Number of unmarried men age 15 and over for every 100 unmarried women
in the United States. <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001489.html>
114
Number of unmarried men for every 100 unmarried women in Alaska, the
highest ratio of men to women among all states. <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001489.html>
118
Number of unmarried men for every 100 unmarried women in Paradise, Nev.,
an unincorporated suburb of Las Vegas. This is one of the highest ratios
of any place with 100,000 or more people. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Tempe,
Ariz.; and Sunnyvale and Santa Ana, Calif., follow.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/001489.html>
52.6 million
Number of households maintained by unmarried men and women. These households
comprise
48 percent of households nationwide. <http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabHH-1.pdf>
28.8 million
Number of people who live alone. These one-person households comprise
26 percent of all U.S. households. <http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabHH-4.pdf>
Parenting
33%
Percentage of births in 2002 to unmarried women. The rate varies from
89 percent for unmarried teenagers ages 15 to 19 to 12 percent for unmarried
women ages 30 to 44.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/fertility/001491.html>
12.2 million
Number of single parents: 10 million single mothers and 2.2 million
single fathers. <http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabFM-2.pdf>
43%
Percentage of opposite-sex, unmarried partner households that include
children.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/000814.html>
683,000
Number of unmarried grandparents who are responsible for caring for
their grandchildren. These grandparents comprise nearly 1-in-3 unmarried
grandparents. <http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_lang=en&_ts=101211465067>
Unmarried Couples
5.5 million
Number of unmarried-partner households in 2000. These households consist
of 4.9 million opposite-sex partners and about 600,000 partners of the
same sex. This is up from 3.2 million in 1990.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/000814.html>
39 years old and 37 years old
Average ages of unmarried male and female partners, respectively, in
Florida — oldest of any state. <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/000814.html>
8.1%
Percentage of households in Paterson, N.J., that are opposite-sex, unmarried-partner
households. Paterson; Manchester, N.H.; and Rochester, N.Y., had the
highest rates of this type of household in the country among cities
with 100,000 or more people. Cities with the highest percentage of same-sex,
unmarried partner households are San Francisco (2.7 percent), Ft. Lauderdale,
Fla. (2.1 percent); and Seattle, Wash. (1.9 percent). <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/census_2000/000814.html>
Voters
34%
Percentage of voters in the 2000 presidential election who were unmarried.
Those who were widowed (59 percent), divorced (54 percent) and never-married
(44 percent) voted at lower rates than married people (67 percent).
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/000505.html>
Education
85%
Percentage of never-married people age 25 and over who are high-school
graduates; this relatively high level of high school completion reflects
this group’s relatively young age. Conversely, the low level of
high-school completions (67 percent) among widowed people is in part
attributable to this group’s older age. <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/001863.html>