Where in England and Wales do single women outnumber the men?
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Version 0 of 1. Over a third of the adult population aged 16 and over in England and Wales is technically single (never married) - at least according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). There are officially more single men than women in England and Wales, across all age brackets and in almost every local authority in the country. Of the country’s single population aged between 18 and 64, 54% are men. While looking at the population as a whole it’s just 49%. There are only two administrative areas in England and Wales that have more never married women aged 18-64 than men - Knowsley, on Merseyside, and the south-west London borough of Wandsworth. In comparison, US data reveals a less homogenous picture as this fascinating analysis by the Martin Prosperity Institute shows (MPI). Where there are more single men than women http://t.co/LZlCC2az8J pic.twitter.com/LuJdPWYIJJ A lot of this has to do with how the ONS defines being single. For the purposes of the census a single person is one that has never married or entered into a civil partnership. By a wider definition of single - including those who are not married (divorced or widowed), you could say that over half of the country’s population is single - as we and the ONS have previously done. The problem with this - particularly the exclusion of unmarried couples living together - was covered in some depth recently by the BBC. Neither is what the the majority of people understand by the term single (which is why a like-for-like comparison with the MPI study is probably not possible). However, the never married definition is the best proxy we have for singletons and taking a detailed look nevertheless throws up some interesting trends. In Wandsworth there are 66,000 single women between 18 and 64, compared to 64,000 men. The margin for Knowsley is much smaller - 21,000 to 20,800. These are also the only two local authority areas where there are more never married 25-34 year old women than there are men. Across most of the different age brackets, the locations are as few and far between but vary slightly. Haringey and Lewisham are where there are more officially single women aged 45-64 than men. The only place bar Knowsley (again) where this applies for 35-44 year olds is Barking and Dagenham. The map for 18-24 year olds, however, is much more interesting. There are plenty of places where the number of unmarried 18-24 year old women is higher than the stock of males. In Wandsworth, for example, there are 1,200 officially single 18-24 year old females per 1,000 men. Other places with a similar gender breakdown are Runnymede, Winchester, Islington and Lincoln. A lot of the shaded in areas in the map above are areas with a particularly high density of students such as Cardiff, Leeds and Liverpool. We’ve excluded the 65+ age bracket from the analysis above because of their tendency to slightly throw out the numbers. There are considerably more women above a certain age, given life expectancy reasons, and this may be why the patterns differ so much. However, if there are any older souls who are attracted to women and looking for a shot at love with someone from their age bracket - they could do far worse than visit the areas below. The ONS have produced a rather detailed map showing the breakdown for men and women across the country - including the “not married” - which we encourage you to explore if you want to know more. |