“In the near future, American politics, both national and local, may turn on the degree to which people remain single, and also whether they decide to have children.”
That declaration appeared in an article by Joel Kotkin and Samuel J. Abrams, The Rise of the Single Woke (and Young, Democratic) Female, published in RealClear and picked up by a number of other media outlets. The “woke” label was not meant as a compliment, and the article is pocked with nods to culture-war obsessions (drag queens, definitions of gender that are not just biological, those women in higher education with their feminist ideologies and how they are hurting men, etc., etc.). And yet, perhaps in spite of themselves, the authors do make a strong case for the rising power of single women.
Political Power
Single women are politically powerful. In the 2022 midterms, the Democrats did far better than expected, despite all the predictions of a red wave or even a tsunami. Of four groups – single women, single men, married women, and married men – single women were the only ones who voted Democratic in those midterms, and by a lot: 68%. It looks like they carried the Democrats over the finish line. As the authors noted, “single, childless women are joining African Americans as the Democrats’ most reliable supporters.”
A hint that this may continue into the future is that younger women are much more likely than older women to identify as liberal. The question is whether they will continue to embrace liberalism as they grow older.
Demographic Power
I have been keeping track of Census Bureau data for years, and the evidence for the increase in single people (not just women) and people who live alone (a subset of single people) is quite compelling. Kotkin and Abrams focus specifically on the growing numbers of women who stay single and the decreasing numbers of women who are married or married with children. (They are interested in the rise of singles in the U.S., but these trends are global.) With growing numbers comes growing potential to influence not just politics, but also attitudes, values, and practices.
The Power of Recognizing Singlism and of Group Consciousness
Of the four groups, single women are most likely to recognize that singlism exists, especially in the form of discrimination against single people, and to believe that it is wrong to discriminate against single people. Married men are least likely to acknowledge or denounce singlism.
Single women, more so than married women, see their fates as tied to the fates of other women, perhaps suggesting a group consciousness.
Perceptions of single people as a cohesive group matter. When people see single people as more of a group, they are less likely to think it is acceptable to be prejudiced against them.
Not So Powerful: Economic Disadvantages of Single People
The authors note that married people fare better economically than single people. However, they overlook key reasons for that disparity: laws and policies overwhelmingly benefit married people more than unmarried people. Instead, they make the argument that single women “tend to look to the government to help,” without ever acknowledging all the help that only people who are married are getting.
How Does All This Translate into Policy Preferences?
Single people, the authors argue, want more affordable urban housing, more investment in transit, and a guaranteed income. “Family-oriented voters,” they maintain (without citing any evidence), care more about “economic growth, safety, improving basic education, and ways to save money for their offspring.” (They consistently conflate marital status with parental status.)
Kotkin and Abrams believe that the policies that single people want “provide incentives to remain unattached.”(So if I lived in New York City and there were no subways, I’d get married?)
They also think that “if the policy preferences of singles become more significant, the United States may have to brace for the kind of long-term demographic decline evident in Japan and parts of Europe.” They suggest a number of ways of reversing that decline. Unsurprisingly, toning down all the immigrant-bashing wasn’t one of them. Instead, they focused on policies that might result in adults having more kids. They argued for (1) “steps that could allow for easier purchase of homes or lower cost apartments suitable for families” and (2) “reforms that encourage home-based businesses.”
I have no problem with those two suggestions. I think that plenty of single people would also like lower cost homes or apartments that are considered family-sized. And, you don’t need to be married or have kids to appreciate reforms that support home-based businesses.
What the authors’ analysis overlooks are all the ways that married people are already advantaged in the law and in policies and practices. When single people start cashing in on their political power, I think and hope they will demand that no one should be entitled to benefits or protections just because they are married, and no one should be denied those benefits and protections just because they are single.
[Notes: (1) The opinions expressed here do not represent the official positions of Unmarried Equality. (2) I’ll post all these blog posts at the UE Facebook page; please join our discussions there. (3) For links to previous columns, click here.]
About Bella DePaulo
