Lately a few of my friends have complained to me about being single. Either they aren’t dating or aren’t finding the right better-half to marry, but both types eventually converge on the “I don’t want to die alone” fear. I myself am getting married soon, as are quite a few people I know. This leads me to think that dating and finding someone isn’t impossible, but question if it is a prevalent occurrence in our time now to be single.

Going through collected data from the US Census Bureau, doing some Excel showed a steady rise in the percentage of age 18+ Americans who are unmarried (never married, widowed, divorced). In 2006, 44% of men and 47% of women were unmarried. This is approximately a 10% increase in both genders (33% and 38%) since 1970. Age of first marriage has also risen by about 5 years since 1970. Further detailed analysis shows that a little over 70% of Americans age 20-30 are not married. While this is not a shocking number, it does validate that it is fairly common for people in our age group to be single.

I can speculate that the rising career mobility of women mixed with changing societal perceptions of female roles is a major reason for this rising statistic. However, this isn’t to say that people aren’t trying to change their single status; dating services make up a $1 billion industry, with 50% of it attributed to online services. For those in the single crowd, msn.match.com has 10 dating statistics that might give you a new view on things. So for those who are worried about being the old lady with the cats, fret not — with almost half of the US population being single, there has to be someone in the 100 million just for you.

Marital Status and Living Arrangements from US Census Bureau