Singles In America
Single Adults are the largest unreached people group in your community in 2023
Single Adult Statistics in America
Singles come in all ages, backgrounds, and lifestyles. Below you will find some US cited data about Single Adult Statistics in America. Once you know who your community is, only then can you reach them, and they are more single than ever before.
Table for One Ministries exists to build a community for Single Adults through discipleship since 2013! We offer singles ministry resources such as blogs, conferences, bible studies, and coaching.
Dr. PJ Dunn, Minister and Founder, is passionate about reaching and equipping single adults through discipleship. As an advocate for singles, he travels nationally, speaking, coaching, and creating content for singles and the local church. With over 15 years of local church service, PJ now serves as a Discipleship Consultant in North Georgia with the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, helping churches make disciples and reach their community.
29.8 is the average age for a first marriage for men and 27.8 for women as of 2022. This has increased every year for the past 25 years with a major increase since 2007.
Source:
Census 2022
Percentage of unmarried U.S. residents 18 and older in 2022 at different stages of singleness.
SINGLES
Never married adults 22+
Number of people who lived alone in 2021. They comprised 28 percent of all households, up from 17 percent in 1970.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2021
Percentage of unmarried U.S. residents 18 and older who were women in 2021; 47 percent were men.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2021
Unmarried people in America 18 and older in 2021. This group comprised 53 percent of all U.S. residents 18 and older.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2021
Percentage of voters in the 2020 presidential election who were unmarried.
Source:
Voting and Registration in the Election of 2020
COLLEGIATE SINGLES
Ages 18-22
The percent of young adults ages 18-34 that are single. In 1978, 59 percent of young adults were married.
Source:
Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2022
Adults ages 18 to 24 live in the parental home, compared to 16 percent of young adults ages 25 to 34
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2021
Roughly three-in-ten unpartnered men (31%) lived in the home of at least one of their parents in 2019 compared to 24% of women.
Source:
Pewresearch.org 2019
DATING SINGLES
Singles who are actively seeking to find a relationship with another single adult
Among adults who have never been married, 58% say they would like to get married someday and 27% are not sure if they want to get married. Still, 14% say they do not want to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey
Source:
Pew Research 2017
Some 94 percent of respondents stated they believe in true love
Source:
Statista Do you believe in true love?
62 percent of men felt that sharing simular ideas about raising children was important to them
Source:
Statista Factors important to dating
78 percent of women were of the opinion that finding someone with a steady job would be very important to them
Source:
Statista Factors important to dating
ENGAGED SINGLES
Ring is on the finger!
The average length of an engagement in America is 12-18 month. 2/3 of women want their man to ask their father for permission to marry them and 69% of couples have known each other for 3 or more years.
Source:
Wedding Industry Stats
The average cost of a wedding in 2023 is expected to be $29,000, up from $28,000 in 2022, according to wedding planning platform Zola.
Source:
Zola 2023
A quarter of all US weddings are destination weddings.
Source:
Truly Experiences 2022
While the share who are currently cohabiting remains far smaller than the share who are married, the share of adults ages 18 to 44 who have ever lived with an unmarried partner (59%) has surpassed the share who has ever been married (50%)
Source:
Pewresearch.org 2017
Roughly four-in-ten adults ages 25 to 54 (38%) were unpartnered – neither married nor living with a partner, and 9% are cohabiting.
Source:
Pewresearch.org 2021
The majority of never-married adults say they haven’t found the right person, but 41% cite financial reasons for not getting married.
Source:
Pewresearch.org 2017
DIVORCED SINGLES
Singles who have been married before and are currently not married or recently separated
Singles adults who are divorced remarry on average of just over 3 years after their last divorce.
Source:
Census.gov, DivorceStatistics.org
The median age of first marriage divorces in America. Singles adults who are divorced remarry on average of just over 3 years after their last divorce.
Source:
Census.gov, DivorceStatistics.org
45-50% of first marriages end in divorce, and that percentage only rises with each re-marriage.
Source:
Census.gov, DivorceStatistics.org
SINGLE PARENTING
Single parents can come from divorce, widowed, adoption or never being married
In 1980, some 18 percent of all women in the United States who gave birth were unmarried. As of 2020, the percentage of births to unmarried women has increased to 40.5 percent.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2020
Number of unmarried grandparents who were caregivers for their grandchildren in 2018. They comprised about three in 10 grandparents who were responsible for their grandchildren.
Source:
Census 2021
620,327 The number of abortions in America in 2020
Source:
CDC 2020
Median family income of married-couple families with children was about $101,560 in 2021, whereas their single-father counterparts had median total family income of $50,942 and single-mother counterparts had just $32,586.
Source:
Census 2021
Number of unmarried parents living with their children in 2021. Of these, 10.0 million were unmarried mothers and 1.7 million were unmarried fathers, and 1.9 million were unmarried couples with at least one shared child.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2021
Percentage of women age 15 to 50 with a birth in the last 12 months, as of 2021, who were widowed, divorced or never married.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2021
While there was a large jump in birth rates for women in their late 30s, the decline seen in younger groups still brought the overall fertility rate down, shifting the median age at childbirth to 30
Source:
Census: 2022
WIDOWS
Singles who were married and while married their spouse passed away
Number of widows in America, of which 4 times as many are women as men. Widows live on average 14 years alone after their spouse has passed away.
Source:
Census.gov, Census.gov, Widows Bridge
SAME-SEX ATTRACTION SINGLES
A Biblical relationship classification of those who struggle with same-sex attraction is that they are single adults.
There are 710,00 same-sex married couple households and 500,000 households with same-sex unmarried partners living together. In addition, 191,000 children live with same-sex parents.
Source:
2021 US Census
After climbing steadily for almost a decade, the percentage of Americans who identify as LGBTQ remained steady at 7.2% in 2022
Source:
Gallop Survey 2022
More than 1 in 10 millennials (11.2%) say they are LGBTQ+. Among older generations, the percentages are much smaller—3.3% of Generation X, 2.7% of baby boomers, and 1.7% of the silent generation.
Source:
Gallop Survey 2022
25.6 million single adults over 18 who have or do struggle with same-sex attraction, between 8 and 11%. Adults are two to three times more likely to say that they are attracted to individuals of the same sex or have had same-sex sexual experiences than they are to self-identify as LGBTQ+.
Source:
Williams Institute 2011
Among LGBTQ+ adults who say they are religious, more than 3 in 4 (77%) identify as a Christian, including 28% who are Protestants.
Source:
Williams Institute 2020
MOST SINGLE ADULT STATISTICS IN AMERICA ARE ORIGINAL DATA FOUND AT CENSUS.GOV AND USED WITH PERMISSION.
RESOURCES FOR LEADERS
At Table for One Ministries, we are comprised of seminary professors, ministers, doctoral students, and lay leaders passionate about reaching singles. We have decades of ministry experience and are here to help you reach and engage your entire community.
Table for One Ministries has existed to build a community for Single Adults through discipleship since 2013. We offer singles ministry resources such as blogs, conferences, bible studies, and coaching to Singles Ministers, directors, teachers, and volunteers to single adults.
