If you google "63% of men are single" you'll get a trove of clickbait articles that genuinely look like they were written by an AI or a self-help guru. Most of the conversation around this Pew Center study is blatant sensationalism. More sensationist publications are basically farming the obvious rage bait title to get clicks and seem to blame women for raising their standards to delusional levels, being queer, and overall attempt to depict lonely men as victims of a new gynocentric society where men are left in rot because of women's standards surpass which the lowly everyman could ever hope meet.

The issue that I have with the discourse around this statistic is that it's very similar to the 80/20 factoid that gets passed around discussions involving dating and such. It's true in the sense that it's true for that specific OkCupid study and likely relatively true for most popular online dating sites. But, people bring it up as an example of empirical evidence to substantiate their personal opinion on women's preferences and dating habits. That's when it doesn't hold up as well.

The stat is understandably confusing since women quite literally outnumber men in the US. There's a few primary reasons for this stat that helps clear it up. A few of which are mentioned by the Pew study itself.

Women typically marry at younger ages than men.

Men often don't marry until later on in life and will typically spend most of their 20s building their career and exploring their options before deciding to marry. There's definitively patriarchal implications here that I won't dive too deep into here for brevity but it's definitely a point worthy of discussion.

Small rant: Some publications (usually medium but they're paywalled) are very willing to blame men for this variance by lambasting young men (18-29) as too emotionally immature for women since women mature much quicker than men. Which is, to say the least, a very harmful stereotype to perpetuate since it suggests nature in the place of nurture and says little about how we actually treat women as a society that would make them "mature" quicker.

Sure, this might be true in practice and women might mature faster in some areas than men. But, the average age gap in most marriages is only 2-3 years. So, to suggest that women prefer "older" men for their maturity is really pushing the envelope on what "older" actually means. Lots of discussions will coopt "older men" as suggestive of age gaps of 5-10+ years such mid 20s women dating mid 30s men which is definitely not the fucking case. Sometimes, the whole "women mature faster" just feels like deflection for men that feel guilty that their partner is significantly younger than them. Rant over.

The survey questions conducted by the study are somewhat rigid.

The study asks its participants if they are currently married, living with a partner, divorced, separated, widowed, or have never been married. It then asks if they are currently in a "committed romantic relationship" with the only options being "Yes, I am," "No, I am not," or "No answer."

What determines what a "committed romantic relationship" is? How do we know that the the survey's respondents weren't fully confident in their answer to this question? Two people in a "committed relationship" could have answered this question differently. Not to mention that survey respondents that didn't respond to that question are not shown.

In my opinion, a better question for that portion of the survey would have been something along the lines of "currently not dating/not seeing anyone" or something more broad. This means that a bunch of respondents could have possibly been dating someone but not seriously enough to consider their relationship "committed" and answered thusly. I myself would have probably answered that I wasn't seeing someone even though I was actively and exclusively talking to someone I wanted to be with. I'm not "in a committed relationship" but to suggest that I'm fully "single" is also disingenuous if I'm actively seeing someone. This blog post poses similar questions to the methodology and findings of Pew and compares it to the findings of the General Social Survey.

Full disclosure: I'm not fully confident in this guy's blogs since he often just cites other blogs he's written. I'm not citing it as evidence just posting it here so you can read their take on Pew's research as well since it's pretty insightful IMO.

The study's respondents basically answer most of your questions.

The 63% - 34% headline is the shiny clickbait-y part that everyone uses. But, if you actually read the study and all of its findings, you'll find that the survey included a lot more responses that are usually left out of the editorials that covered this study that give a lot more insight into the reasoning behind the 63% stat for men. Note that all of the key facts below apply to all adults and not just 18-29 adults.

  1. 57% of respondents are not seeking out partners at all. Another 7% are only seeking out casual dates and a further 22% are open to both casual dates and committed relationships. This means that only 13% of survey respondents are only looking for committed relationships with the vast majority of respondents fully disinterested in seeking out romantic partners by any metric. 50% of single men are seeking romantic partners but only 35% of single single women are doing the same.
  2. Single men are looking for relationships at a much lower rate than previously reported. 61% of single men in 2019 versus only 50% in 2022. Women's search rate only changed slightly YoY being 38% in 2019 to 35% in 2022.
  3. Single women are overwhelmingly only looking for committed relationships (25% for single men vs 41% single women). Men mostly want only casual dating or are open to either. But, from the disparity in the committed relationship only category, we see where men generally lean in that regard.

And, if you care to look at the results of the 2019 study, there's more detailed responses from respondents that help elaborate their position of being single and their rationale for it.

In the 2019 study, half of singles reporting that they were currently not dating. With most singles responding that they "have more important priorities right now," "Just like being single," and "too busy," respectively. With an even split of 18%/18% Men/Women of respondents reporting that they just didn't have any luck in the past with dating. Even the "Feel like no one would be interested" is more a of a speculative question than it is an admission of past efforts not working.

The unweighted sample size of people 18-29 is pretty damn small for such big claims

The study itself is ok and I trust the study's findings. However, I don't fully believe the study was broad enough to make the kind of broad strokes conclusions that many editorials have been gleaning from it. There's a difference between having open-ended discussions around the findings of a study and using the findings study as empirical evidence to substantiate personal opinions, support baseless claims, or just instigate moral outrage.

Yes, 63% of men are "single" by the study's definition (which is a very ambiguous definition of being single). But, with much of the additional context that the study provides, I think it's disingenuous to make such scathing remarks as "men are under attack more than ever."

I assume most editorials assume that people will just read their publication and never bother to actually read the findings of the study. In that case, they'd be right. Much of the discourse surrounding this study includes people actively speculatively answering hypothetical questions that are literally answered by the survey's respondents.

This article by Psychology today is probably the most insightful, well written, and moderate publication I've found on the matter. Most importantly, the author actually proposes solutions to young men in the form of brief therapy, relational coaching, and overall counteracting avoidance and withdrawal if they're truly having trouble dating.

In my opinion:

With the rising popularity of dating apps through the pandemic, I think that the concept of "seeking romantic partners" has become diluted. Simply having a dating profile technically constitutes as seeking romantic partners, just from the convenience of your bedroom. This ease of use allows for a slew of men that are likely not that serious about dating to just immediately enter the dating market by downloading an app and uploading a few pictures.

Men are enabled by society to exercise more sexual agency. Women overall believe that having sexual agency has more ramifications than what would otherwise be beneficial to them. Women's sexuality has been long demonized and were pressured by society to remain "pure." As much as the prevailing narrative suggests that women are allowed to practice sexually agentic behavior, a lot of women still don't want to and feel uncomfortable doing it. These societal pressures keep them away from things like dating apps. Women are still more likely to meet people through social groups, families, friends, community, etc.

At the end of the day, the whole single disparity basically disappears in the 30-49 age bracket. IMO, I think it has more to do with men choosing not to settle down in their 20s versus being unable to find romantic partners. Ironically, the men interviewed in a New York post article about the study are still getting dates and just writing off the changes in the dating scene as permissible and generally come off as uninterested in dating.

What's not here to suggest that men's standards for women are also getting too high since they're clearly able to get dates but just remain single instead? What's not suggesting that women aren't offering enough to young men for them to bother dating young women and young women have to date older men instead? What's not suggesting that men are just becoming disinterested in dating and taking the easy way out? Even some more sensationalist articles suggested that men are getting their sexual fix through porn instead of hookups and are, thusly, uninterested in dating and even take up hobbies or continue professional studies.

How do we know that men aren't truly just uninterested in the prospect of sex and ignoring dating until they believe they're truly ready to invite someone into their lives? If you can scratch that itch yourself, why bother going on constant dinner dates for the possibility to get what your right hand can do for you for free without the prospect of rejection?

Not to mention that the rise in popularity of platforms like OnlyFans definitely satiates men at a deeper level that just booting up the hub. It's hard to blame people for paying for someone's OF since it's essentially paying to see someone's nudes, chat with them, and receive custom content from them, all without the fear of rejection or pressure to actually conversate and impress them. If you're already paying $10-20 a month for your own personal sexting and nudes buddy, why bother paying $60 minimum for a dinner date to for a chance get the same thing for just one night anyways?

It's clear that detractors are twisting it to demonize women for having high standards or lambasting men young for being undatable but what if it's neither of those things? What if it's something else entirely?

Still, I think this whole shit is overblown.

TD;LR:

  • Men marry later in life, women marry sooner and typically marry/date older partners.
  • Young women and, to a lesser extent, young men are reportedly deliberately single.
  • OLD has increased in popularity over the pandemic and men vastly outnumber women on dating apps. Likely skewing the number of men "looking" by just having a dating app profile.
  • Men are more likely to be searching for casual dates instead of commitment.
  • 63% of 18-29 men are single. However, only 25% of 30-49 men are single, much closer to women's 21% single rate of the same age bracket.
  • The survey questions are arguably restrictive and don't give room for unique dating situations where men are (in my opinion) more likely to downplay their relationship status instead of inflating it like women might.