Do We Face Discrimination for Being Single?
Organizations fight for equal rights
When my “nomo crones” (non-mothers) friend Donna Ward sent an email asking us to “like” the social media pages for Singlehood Australia, I had no idea what a deep rabbit hole I would be falling into.
Donna, author of the fabulous book She I Dare Not Name, which I wrote about here, is the CEO of Singlehood Australia, which fights for equal rights for unmarried people. She is also instigator of the International Singlehood Advocates Network.
From these sites, I found a link for Singles Equality in the U.S. and links to numerous other organizations. Holy cow. This is big.
I’ll be honest. Aside from the occasional lousy restaurant table, I have not felt discriminated against for being alone. I have felt the burn for not having children, and I feel discriminated against as a woman sometimes, but for being single, not really. Maybe there’s some cushioning in being a widow and being straight as opposed to never married and/or LGBTQ. Maybe it’s that I have enough money to live comfortably and have never tried to buy a home on my own. Maybe I’m just naive.
I squirm at the idea of claiming I’m being discriminated against in this country in 2026. There has always been and always will be a majority of people who think everyone should be married and have children. They will sometimes make us feel angry, hurt, or left out. But we don’t have to take on their unwitting rudeness—just like I don’t have to dwell on the words of the woman who dissed me last week for not having children. She has a huge family and probably can’t imagine being alone.
But I do see some issues.
Filing income tax returns as a couple in the U.S. has advantages. You get even more deductions if you have dependents (and you can’t count your cat.)
We pay more per person for utilities; it costs the same to heat or cool a home, no matter how many people live there.
When we travel, we may pay extra if we aren’t part of a couple.
When we’re ill or injured, hospital staff may refuse to speak to anyone who is not a blood relative, and they may suggest we can’t go home after a procedure if we don’t have family to help.
On the job, bosses may assume we’re free to work overtime and cover for co-workers with families.
Landlords may be reluctant to rent to singles, and banks may be wary of offering loans to one person.
Singles Equality has a “Singles Bill of Rights” on its website. They say, “U.S. government, commerce, and culture discriminate systemically against single people. This bias, also known as singlism, permeates laws, economics, healthcare, business, entertainment, and news media.”
They go on to list the rights we should have, noting that in the U.S. single people technically have all the rights listed. “The problem is those rights are not being exercised.”
Both the Australian and American sites declare that despite the large number of people who are single, our laws and culture seem to consider the traditional nuclear family, rather than the individual, as the basis of society.
That’s a lot to chew on. If you follow the links, you could be reading about this all day. If any of this resonates with you, read, comment, get involved. Fight for equal treatment in every aspect of our solo lives.
Let’s Talk
Each thing on the list could and probably should be a separate discussion, but let’s start with the basic question: As a solo person, do you feel discriminated against financially, socially, in health care, housing, work, or other ways? When, where, how? Tell us about it.
Photo from the Singles Equality website
How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs and cats. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available at your favorite bookseller.
Obviously I can't speak directly to this, but I think this is another offshoot of the traditional nuclear family bias that is being pushed by a certain segment of society. And boy are they out of touch...... the kids in my son's generation are possibly never going to return to the days of Ozzie and Harriet. I am not alone, but I have no problem believing that single people, particularly women, face systemic discrimination.
Just a thought: perhaps those that are not widowed or single yet can think about how they treat or stand up for single women they know. If waiting on the hopes that it'll never be you, the system and society cannot be changed to prevent it from happening to you.
I think your maybes about why you don't feel you've been discriminated against are huge valid reasons. Housing alone is one of Maslow's basic needs and huge to many.
Thanks for bringing up the topic.