Single people are targets of singlism: they are stereotyped, stigmatized, and discriminated against. Research documenting singlism is piling up, but do Americans realize it even exists? And if they are told about ways in which single people are treated unfairly, do they acknowledge that the unequal treatment is in fact unfair?
YouGov just reported the results of what may be the first nationally representative survey of adults in the U.S. to address all of these issues of singlism. The participants were 1,000 adults who were interviewed online at the end of January 2022.
Evidence for Singlism
In the U.S., there are more than 1,000 federal laws that benefit and protect only people who are legally married. Those laws give married people more access to Social Security benefits and health insurance, several kinds of tax breaks, and a variety of other advantages.
In a series of studies, Wendy Morris and Stacey Sinclair and I found that single people are targets of discrimination in the housing market. For example, in one of the studies, rental agents were far more likely to want to rent to a married couple than a cohabiting couple or a pair of friends. In another study, we described unfair practices, such as a landlord preferring married tenants over single ones even when the single tenants offered to pay more. Participants were much more likely to think that such a decision was legitimate than similarly biased acts of discrimination against women, gays or lesbians, obese people, or African Americans.
Sometimes singlism shows up in the microaggressions of everyday life. But singlism can also be financially devastating, dangerous, life-threatening, and potentially deadly.
Do Americans Realize that Singlism Exists?
The YouGov survey asked this question:
Some people have argued that society’s laws, policies, and practices favor married people and couples over single people, a phenomenon referred to as “singlism.” Do you think that single people are stigmatized and discriminated against relative to people who are coupled?
Overall, averaged across all the people who participated in the survey, 40% said no, single people are not stigmatized and discriminated against. About the same number, 42%, said yes. The others said they were unsure.
Unmarried women were especially likely to realize that single people are targets of singlism
Yes, single people are stigmatized and discriminated against
51 percent, unmarried women
39 percent, unmarried men
35 percent, married women
40 percent, married men
The unmarried women stood out from everyone else. More than half of them, 51%, realized that single people are stigmatized and discriminated against. In the other groups, 40% at most realized that singlism exists.
The more income people have, the more likely they are to deny that singlism exists
The YouGov researchers compared people in three income categories. The people with more money were more likely to deny that singlism exists.
No, single people are not stigmatized and discriminated against
34 percent, income under $50,000
42 percent, income between $50,000 and $100,000
50 percent, income over $100,000
Republicans are more likely than Independents or Democrats to deny that singlism exists
No, single people are not stigmatized and discriminated against
30 percent, Democrats
37 percent, Independents
57 percent, Republicans
Given Examples of Single People Treated Worse, About 1 in 3 Americans Say That Is Fair
Unequal taxation
Survey participants were told that “married people sometimes pay less in taxes than they would if they were single.” Asked if that was fair or unfair, or whether they were unsure, overall 37 percent said that was unfair, 36% said it was fair, and the others were unsure.
Again, it mattered whether the participants were unmarried or married, male or female.
% saying it is unfair that single people pay more taxes than married people
51 percent, unmarried women
39 percent, unmarried men
31 percent, married women
19 percent, married men
Responses to the first question showed that unmarried women were especially likely to recognize that single people are targets of stigma and discrimination. Responses to this question showed that, after being told that single people sometimes pay more in taxes than married people, unmarried women were especially likely to see that as unfair. The married men stood out in the opposite way: only 19 percent said it was unfair that singles pay more in taxes.
Again, political affiliation mattered. Democrats were most likely to say that it was unfair that singles pay more in taxes (47%) and Republicans were least likely (27%). The Independents were in between (35%).
The more income people had, the less likely they were to think it was unfair that singles pay more in taxes. Of those making less than $50,000, 41% said it was unfair. Of those making between $50,000 and $100,000, 36% said it was unfair. Of those making over $100,000, just 28% thought it was unfair that singles pay more in taxes.
Unequal access to health insurance and Social Security benefits
Participants were also asked whether it was unfair or fair that “single people can’t get health insurance or Social Security benefits through other people the way married people can through their spouses.” Overall, 38% said that was unfair and 36% said it was fair. The others were unsure.
% saying it is unfair that single people do not have the same access to health insurance or Social Security benefits
46 percent, unmarried women
39 percent, unmarried men
33 percent, married women
29 percent, married men
Once again, the pattern was the same. Unmarried women were most likely to say it was unfair that single people do not have the same access to health insurance or Social Security benefits, and married men were least likely to think that was unfair.
Democrats were especially likely to say that single people’s unequal access to health insurance and Social Security benefits was unfair (52%). Just 32% of Independents and 28% of Republicans said the same.
The less income people had, the more likely they were to say that single people’s unequal access to health insurance and Social Security benefits was unfair. Of those making less than $50,000, 45% said it was unfair. Of those making between $50,000 and $100,000, 34% said it was unfair. Of those making over $100,000, just 28% thought it was unfair that singles pay more in taxes.
No legal protections from housing or employment discrimination based on marital status
Participants were told that “there are no legal protections from housing or employment discrimination based on marital status.” Asked if that was fair or unfair, overall, more people said it was unfair (37%) than fair (27%). The others were unsure. That’s different from the responses to the other questions, which were more evenly split between unfair and fair, or, for the first question, saying that singlism does or does not exist.
Maybe that’s because the issue was phrased as a matter of “marital status” discrimination, rather than discrimination against single people. Some of the participants may have believed that married people, rather than single people, are the targets of housing and employment discrimination, even though the available evidence suggests the opposite.
% saying it is unfair that there are no legal protections from housing or employment discrimination based on marital status
38 percent, unmarried women
40 percent, unmarried men
38 percent, married women
29 percent, married men
This time, unmarried women did not stand out from the others. Married men, though, were again the least likely to find it unfair that there are no legal protections from marital status discrimination.
Party affiliation showed the typical pattern: 47% of Democrats, 34% of Independents, and 28% of Republicans thought the lack of legal protections was unfair.
For income, only the highest income group differed from the others: 32% of them said that this was unfair, compared to 40% of both the lowest and middle-income groups.
Conclusions
In the U.S., there are nearly as many adults, 18 and older, who are unmarried as married. Their numbers have been growing for decades, but awareness of the ways in which they are systematically disadvantaged has not kept up.
Previous research documented singlism in domains such as housing, employment, taxation, and health care, including ways in which the unfair treatment could prove to be dangerous or even deadly. But in the YouGov survey, only 42 percent believed that single people are stigmatized or discriminated against. A roughly equal number, 40 percent, believed they were not. A substantial 18 percent just weren’t sure.
Perhaps even more remarkably, even when participants were informed of examples in which single people were disadvantaged relative to coupled people, fewer than 40 percent of the participants, on the average, thought that was unfair. When married and unmarried women and men were compared, in almost every instance, it was the unmarried women who were most attuned to singlism. They were especially likely to recognize that it exists, and they were particularly likely to say that unfair practices are indeed unfair.
[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
