the attack on SINGLE women’s economic security
For nearly eight decades, the story of U.S. labor has been simultaneously incremental breakthrough and stubborn lag: since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began parsing data by gender in 1948, one truth has held: women’s participation in work has steadily risen, even as the entire system tried to keep them in place. In 1948, just 32 % of women were employed or actively seeking work, compared with 87 % of their male peers. By the end of the 1990s, about 60 % of women were in the workforce alongside 75 % of men. Fast–forward to early 2025: the gap between male and female labor-force participation stands at roughly 10.1 percentage points — the smallest in recorded history.
What we are witnessing is nothing less than a great wealth transfer — not just of money and assets, but of power, control, narrative, decision-making, and independence. And interestingly, it is being led by women. But not just any women: increasingly, single women — never-married, divorced, delayed-married — engaged in their own economic lives.
This turning tide deserves examination: How did we arrive here? What is the resistance they face? What does this mean for the patriarchy, for men, for marriage, for work, for independence? And now — as mass layoffs, political attacks on women’s rights, and even military policy shifts ripple through — what’s next?
Women’s labor-force participation grew dramatically from the mid-20th century through the end of the millennium. The BLS reports that among women ages 25-54, participation rose from roughly 35 % in 1948 to 76.8 % in 1999. Meanwhile, men’s participation in that same age cohort has declined steadily: they peaked near 97.4 % in the mid-1950s, and by 2023 were at roughly 89.1 %.This narrowing gap is often framed as progress for women — and it is — but we must also see the structural story underneath: men’s employment collapsed in many industries, service jobs proliferated (where women disproportionately worked), and the very notion of one-earner households changed. The gains of women have come along with changing work itself.
employment is the foundation of independence
What that means: women are in the game as never before. For those single women — especially unmarried, living alone, heading households — this matters. Because employment is the foundation of independence, and independence is the ground from which wealth (and the mind-set of wealth) grows.
Here is a seismic shift: single women — not the married woman behind a husband, but women living their own earning, own owning life — are becoming not just more visible but economically consequential. According to federal data, in 2021 a record 52 % of women in the U.S. were unmarried: a sharp climb from just 7 % in 1900. The social contract has been rewired.
Single women are now larger players in the job market, in homeownership, in higher education. Single women owned nearly 11 million homes in 2021 compared with 8 million single men. LendingTree analysis supports that. Yet, the floor is uneven: never-married women earned only ~92 % of what never-married men did, and hold about 29 % less wealth, per Wells Fargo economists. (You say “just 92 %” — I say “not good enough when you’re already doing the heavy lifting solo.”)
Single women are now larger players in the job market, in homeownership, in higher education.
Single women also head up 26 % of U.S. households. That means one in four U.S. households is under the stewardship of a woman on her own. That’s not a footnote. It’s a pivot point. Education? Women have out-earned men in bachelor’s degree attainment for years. They increasingly are the primary breadwinners in about 30 % of opposite-sex marriages and almost 40 % of all U.S. households. They control the consumer wallet too: women contribute an estimated $7 trillion to U.S. GDP per year and drive principal shopping decisions in 72 % of households. Single women are rewiring the economy from the inside out. They are borrowers, homeowners, savers (to the extent they can), spenders, earners. They are the “Next Normal” economic anchor.
Every turning tide meets resistance. The rising force of women has provoked a reflex: the patriarchy doesn’t fold gracefully. Instead the system shifts — subtly and not so subtly — to preserve the old order. Men’s disquiet, men’s unemployment, men’s eroding economic role all feed into this backlash. Let’s be clear: this is not just biological gender conflict. It is structural. The idea that men are the default economic providers, the heads of households, the decision-makers — that ideology is fraying. And when it frays, the system pushes back.
Labor data: men’s participation has declined. Women’s has grown. In workplaces and institutions the old hierarchies respond with subtle gating: pay gaps, brand new layoffs that hit women harder, cultural narratives about “women are less/should step aside,” etc. Consider the tech layoffs (recently): studies show women were disproportionately affected in that sector, via “last in, first out” practices or roles that were more likely to be cut. Men still hold the bulk of numbers, but the relative hit to women is deeper in certain contexts. These are not coincidences, they are structural.
Then there’s the question of marriage: as women become more independent, the institution of marriage becomes less of an economic necessity. Younger generations delay marriage or skip it. And that shift threatens the old patriarchy not just culturally but economically. The idea that marriage is how women accumulate wealth (via combined income, through spousal benefits, etc.) weakens when women build wealth by themselves.
We should also talk about pay gaps: the fact that single women earn ~92 % of what single men do is evidence of persistent systemic discrimination. The fact that single women possess 29 % less wealth than single men points to deeper structural fault lines. If you are single, you don’t have the spousal buffer, you don’t have automatic combining of assets or household economies of scale; you still carry the burden solo. And yet you’re thriving anyway--which makes the resistance even more visible.
Amid all the structural inertia, women — particularly single women — survive and even thrive. How? First, by earning. They’ve leaned into education, professional tracks, degrees. They’ve entered fields that were once male-dominated. The Pew Research Center notes women have increased presence across many high-paying occupations; still, nine out of the ten highest-paying jobs remain male-dominated. Second, by owning. Homeownership among single women is higher than among single men (11 million vs 8 million in 2021). The ability to accumulate real assets changes the equation. Third, by leveraging their growing consumer power, investing in their independence, delaying or declining marriage when the terms are unequal, and thus avoiding certain wealth traps.
Still, the fragility remains. Single women spend more of their income on essentials (housing, healthcare, education) rather than discretionary spending. That means building savings, retirement nests, buffers is harder. With lower absolute wealth and lower earnings (compared with men), the margin for error is smaller. It’s not just that they are winning — they are winning while climbing uphill.
The pandemic shifted much of this story. Women’s work recovered more quickly than men’s, narrowing the gap. But the recovery is uneven. The industry-by-industry breakdown tells a deeper story: women in tech, women in caregiving roles, women with less seniority — they are more exposed to layoffs, to “down-rounds,” to cuts. For example, many lay-off policies in tech default to “last in, first out” which often hit women (who were later hired) harder.
women have progressed, yes. But the system is now pulling them back.
Between January and June 2025, over 212,000 women age 20+ left the U.S. workforce while only 44,000 men entered it. This exodus reflects both economic shock and policy rollback: the end of remote work flexibility, rising childcare costs, elimination of supports. The world of work that temporarily allowed women more flexibility is contracting, and the burden falls on them. In short: women have progressed, yes. But the system is now pulling them back. When men’s employment slipped and women gained, we applauded. But when the tide turns downward again, it is women who bear the brunt. And yet — we must highlight — single women, in many cases, carry on. Their stakes are high, and their drive is fierce.
We cannot isolate the workplace and home from the wider socio-political field. The same system which shrinks women’s economic space in business is simultaneously shrinking it in the military, in institutions of power, in governance. Enter Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense. His past statements and current decisions are instructive. He has publicly said that “we should not have women in combat roles… they’re life-givers, not life-takers.” Meanwhile the Pentagon under his watch dissolved the long‐standing advisory committee on women in the services, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, citing a “divisive feminist agenda.”
On the one hand, we have single women increasingly controlling homes, incomes, credit, ownership; on the other, the apparatus is explicitly closing space for women, questioning their roles, eroding advisory mechanisms.
Think about that. On the one hand, we have single women increasingly controlling homes, incomes, credit, ownership; on the other, the institutional military apparatus is explicitly closing space for women, questioning their roles, eroding advisory mechanisms. That is not neutral. That is ideological. That is part of the wealth/power transfer narrative, because power is not only economic but institutional. The message: Women can lead in incomes, but we’ll limit where you serve and how you serve. And politically: the Project 2025 blueprint (linked to the upcoming 47th administration under Donald Trump) signals rollback of key women’s rights and representation. Combined with the fact that over 300,000 Black women (many heads of household) have involuntarily lost their jobs since the start of 2025 — the same demographic that overwhelmingly voted against Trump (92 %) — leads one to ask: Is the attack on women’s economic security in progress?
Let’s be frank: men are not monolithic, nor are they villains. But the social structure built over decades – the patriarchy – depends on a predictable arrangement: men provide, women rely (or partner), household grows, marriage cements. That paradigm is cracking. When women can, and do, provide—and independently—then marriage becomes optional, not economic necessity. That shift undermines older gender contracts and rattles the male identity built on provider roles.
For men who are stagnating economically, or whose identity remains tethered to the old model, the rise of women constitutes not support but competition. Specifically, if a single woman is earning, owning, investing, she needs men less. That is transformative. It threatens the myth of male indispensability in economic terms. The patriarchy fears not just women advancing; it fears women advancing by themselves. And that is what single women are doing. The wealth transfer is not only an accrued asset transfer but a narrative shift: women are not dependents. They are controllers. That threatens the old scripts. It’s why we see resistance: pay gaps still persist; layoffs that hit women; institutional bias; cultural narratives about women “leaning in”, “having it all” — which mask structural barriers. And now, with job losses among women rising, women being pulled out of workforce, the threat to that shift becomes real.
The patriarchy fears not just women advancing; it fears women advancing by themselves.
Even as single women rise, the base remains uneven. Never-married women earned just ~92 % of what never-married men did last year, and hold about 29 % less wealth. That’s not a rounding error — that’s systemic. The wealth gap is steeper than pay gap. The pay gap is persistent because of occupational segregation, caregiving burden, part-time work, unconscious bias, lack of promotion, and structural supports.
Single women’s spending profiles reflect that: average spending for single women in 2021 was ~$39,000 vs ~$41,000 for single men. Their spending is more heavily weighted toward essentials rather than higher discretionary categories. Which means fewer savings, less risk appetite, smaller buffer for downturns. That matters because when layoffs or crises hit, the buffer is thinner.
The projections: single women are projected to grow at 1.2 % annually from 2018-2030, versus 0.8 % for the overall population. That means their share of households, their economic footprint, continues to expand. And yet the wealth architecture (including pensions, retirements, social safety nets) was built for dual-earner or male-provider norms. Single women are remaking it but still navigating legacy structures.
The great wealth transfer is real. Not the old kind where one generation inherits from another. But the deeper kind where one half of the population (women) shifts from dependency to control; where single women move from minority economic actors to majority proximate actors; where the patriarchy’s economic contract gets challenged not by tokenism but by reality. Marriage declines, single households grow, women’s degrees surpass men’s, homeownership among single women exceeds single men’s. That is seismic. Yet the pay gap remains, the wealth gap persists, and the backlash is intensifying. Corporations lay off women disproportionately; institutions like the Pentagon dissolve women’s advisory boards; political projects aim to rollback rights. The transfer is contested. It is messy. It is urgent. For single women, this is a watershed moment. They are less reliant on men, less constrained by marriage, more economically active and autonomously positioned. But autonomy is not entitlement; it is labor, strategy, sacrifice. And single women still face structural headwinds: wages are still lower, wealth smaller, buffers thinner.
For the patriarchy — yes, the system built on male dominance — this moment creates existential tension: if men are no longer indispensable economic providers, if women can and will provide, own, lead — what remains of the old order? The answer: friction. Resistance. Retrenchment. We are seeing it now.
This is not a future happening somewhere else. It is happening now. Single women are carving their own tables. The wealth transfer is from male-provider economy to independent-woman economy. The questions: Will institutions adapt? Will policy protect? Will culture evolve? Or will we allow backlash to stall this transformation for another generation? This is not about women “taking over” or men “losing out” in a zero-sum game. It is about leveling the field so that women — especially single women — are not fighting for scraps while also challenging the system that enabled scrap-giving. The wealth transfer is one of power and independence, and its impact will ripple for decades to come.