The famous survey by pew research showing 63% of 18-29 men and 34% of 18-29 women reporting not being in a committed relationship has since been a staple of 'male loneliness' discourse, and in areas like this is often pointed to as representing an emerging dynamic of 'soft polygamy', with the argument being that the most reasonable explanation is that women are sharing the same guys without realizing it and mistakenly believe he's committed to them alone. If we look a bit deeper into the data however a few cracks begin to appear.

The first one is simply that other sources do not corroborate this 29% gender gap. The General Social Survey has shown a gap of around 10% in the past few surveys and the 2023 American perspectives survey showed a gap of 12%, down from 21% in the earlier survey. Neither one of these sources shows any indication that there is an emerging gap. These surveys are also nationally representative with comparable sample sizes (though for the GSS you'd need to combine the last two surveys).

When it comes to the 'soft harem' narrative, it falls apart when you realize that the majority of the gap is caused by more women than men who are cohabiting or married. Basically all of it in the APS surveys and above 70% of it in the Pew survey. The fact that they are living together leaves little room for 'spinning plates' and literal harems being widespread just isn't a serious notion. It's also the case that only 1-2% of single 18-29s in the APS reported dating multiple people, and 1% in another survey (NSFG) in 2017-19 reported being in a non-marital, non-cohabiting relationship with multiple partners (no gender difference either).

Lastly, you can look back 40+ years ago and still the statement that 'most young men are single, most young women are not' is applicable. There's nothing new about women dating older guys or a lot of young people still figuring things out. It doesn't make them necessarily celibate however, and according to YouGov only 20% of 18-29s have never had a relationship partner. Current relationship status is a limited snapshot, many single people will have been going in and out of relationships.

For these reasons I believe this survey has been highly misleading, similar to the GSS survey of 2018. It's not a good practice to put all your eggs in one basket. A single survey result from a single source is not the be all end all, and there are important nuances within 'committed relationship'. A more reasonable gap of 10-15% can quite easily be explained by a small age gap of 2-3 years.

The data can be found here: https://nuancepill.com/what-explains-the-young-singleness-gap/