Single men have long been more likely than single women to own a home, but that gap narrowed sharply in recent years, nearly closing in 2021, according to a new Zillow analysis [1]. The report shows that it widened again last year, shining light on the homebuying challenges single women face, including lower salaries and a more volatile workforce experience.
In 2016, an estimated 19.4% of young single women owned a home, compared with 29.6% of young single men—a gap of 10.1 percentage points. The gap shrunk throughout the next five years as more and more women entered the workforce — leading to record-high numbers in 2020 [2]—and women's income to rise. By 2021, that gap was a just 1.8 percentage points.
The first year of the pandemic saw an outsize share of women leave their jobs to take on caregiving responsibilities, as childcare and eldercare options were in flux. Women also continue to earn significantly less than men on average, receiving an estimated 82 cents to every dollar earned by men. As a result, young single women have fewer options when it comes to affordable home listings than young single men.
"Single women had made great strides in narrowing the homeownership gap, but the pandemic reminded us that progress is not always linear," said Skylar Olsen, chief economist at Zillow. "Despite women showing remarkable resilience in returning to the workforce, single women's homeownership rate took a heavy hit in 2022. With rising and volatile mortgage rates furthering affordability challenges, the road to affordable homeownership remains an uphill battle, and it may take creative solutions or even doubling up in a home to achieve that dream."
After growing to 28.6% by 2021, the homeownership rate for single women dropped to 24.5% last year, wiping out almost half the gains made since 2016, when single women's homeownership was at an all-time low of 19.4%. At the same time, the homeownership rate for single men increased 2.7 percentage points in 2022 to 33.1%.
Single women looking to buy a home in Pittsburgh, St. Louis or Detroit — which are among the nation's 50 largest metro areas — will find the highest share of affordable listings. Single women in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Raleigh are most able to compete with single men in the for-sale market; single women in those metros, on average, can afford at least 2% of all active listings and at least 90% of the listings single men can afford. On the other hand, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Jacksonville and New Orleans see the largest gender-based disparity in housing affordability, with single women able to afford fewer than 70% of the homes that single men can afford.
For women to access the greater control that comes with being your own landlord, it may be worth considering the option of obtaining another job or other creative solutions. Because by the homeownership rate record board, 2022 was a hard year for single women.
To read the full report, including more data, charts and methodology, click here [1].