In season three of the Amazon Prime series, "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," Midge Maisel — a divorced single mom in the early 1960s — decides to buy her old apartment with a mortgage provided by her former father-in-law.
The reaction of her family, especially the men, to this decision is one of surprise and concern. A single-mom owning her own home? Even her parents are incredulous; when she later offers them a place to stay, they concoct a cover story saying they bought the apartment for her. You know, to save face.
Well, it turns out that Midge is not an outlier. In fact, a new analysis by an economist at First American Financial Corp. finds that more single women are homeowners than single men.
“More single women owned homes than single men in 2021, despite single women having a lower median household income, a clear sign of the importance of homeownership for this demographic,” said Odeta Kushi, a deputy chief economist with the company that provides banking and insurance services.
In 2020, a Pew Research Center study showed that women earned 84% of what men earned, whether they were working full time or part time.
“An analysis by the National Association of Realtors further supports the claim that single women are prioritizing homeownership,” Kushi said. “According to this 2021 analysis, 42% of single women make financial sacrifices, compared with 32% of single men who purchase homes.”
The homeownership rate among single women-headed households, including those women who are widowed, separated, or divorced, exceeds 53% in 2021, the study said. The study by American Financial neither disclosed the number of women in the study nor showed the median age of the women surveyed.
The biggest driver of this buying trend was wealth creation.
“The 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances data reveals that housing is, in fact, one of the biggest positive drivers of wealth creation in the United States,” Kushi said. “In 2019, the median homeowner had 40 times the household wealth of a renter — nearly $255,000 for the homeowner compared with a little more than $6,000 for the renter.
“While annual house price appreciation won’t always be a record-breaking 17% as it was in 2021, homeownership has remained a key driver of wealth creation even when annual house-price growth was an average of 5% between 2016 to 2019,” she added.
The Census Bureau reported that, in 2021, there were 19.1 million women living alone, compared to 15.6 million men. The Census Bureau, though, doesn't show whether they own their home or are renting.
In Census Bureau reported that children of any age lived in more than 12.6 million households led by women, while children of any age lived in more than 4.1 million households led by men.
