Archives for 2017

Over the course of a lifetime, single people spend tens of thousands of dollars on the weddings of other people. Their married siblings receive about $20,000 toward their wedding expenses from their parents and parents-in-law. These financial transfers grow out of kindness and customs, but they contribute to wealth inequality between people who marry and […]

When I first started studying single life two decades ago, there were no terms for the injustices faced by people who are not married. In fact, one of the most daunting challenges was trying to persuade others that people who are single are targets of stereotyping, stigmatizing, marginalization, and discrimination – or that any such […]

At my “Living Single” blog, I shared the results of the Family Story survey that showed that more than 70 percent of American women believe that a single parent can do just as good a job as two parents. “Research suggests they might be right,” I said. Nicole Rodgers, the director and co-founder of Family […]

One of the joys of 21st century American life is that it is more possible than ever before to follow the life path that suits you best. Nuclear family living is still celebrated, sentimentalized, and rewarded, but it is not even close to being the normative way of life. Just under 20 percent of all […]

Here at Unmarried Equality, we would like all major political parties to take seriously our mission of “fairness and equal treatment of all people regardless of marital status.” If voting patterns are any indication, though, unmarried Americans generally see the Democratic party as more attuned to their concerns than the Republicans.

Unmarried Equality members are painfully aware that there are more than 1,000 federal laws that benefit and protect only people who are legally married. The massive favoritism toward married people is especially evident in Social Security.

The belief that marriage makes people happier and healthier and better off in all sorts of other ways, too, is entrenched in our thinking. It is not just any old belief, it is an ideology in which Americans (and others) have become deeply invested.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released the 2016 income-tax rates for all 35 member countries. Rates were reported separately for two different categories: (1) single people with no children and (2) couples with one earner and two children. MarketWatch described the results under the headline, “Childless, single Americans pay more in […]

Unmarried cohabiting couples have often been at the center of the quest for unmarried equality. Legal rights and protections were especially significant before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, but the issues are still important even now. No one should have to marry in order to be accorded basic benefits and protections. The matter of unmarried […]