Singlehood rises: men without jobs, women with degrees

One in five Spaniards will never live with a partner

Singlehood is no longer a pause. It is a statistical outcome.

One in five Spanish adults will never cohabit with a partner, and the percentage is rising. Demographer Pau Miret reviewed over 10.5 million quarterly EPA data points from 1976 to 2023 and concluded that so-called permanent celibacy—having never cohabited with a partner by age 39—rose from 11% of the population in the late 1970s to 20% in 2018.

The striking aspect is not that there are more singles, but that the reasons are asymmetric: unemployment pushes men out of the relationship market; higher education does the same for women. Two curves that cross badly.

The data: from 25 and 22 to 29.5 and 27

Partnership formation has been delayed season after season. In the 1980s, people stopped being single for the first time at age 25 for men and 22 for women; by 2018, it was 29.5 and 27 respectively. Formal marriage arrives even later: the average rose from 33 years in 2011 to 36.8 in 2022, and although weddings increased after the pandemic, they remain at historic lows.

Miret identifies two circumstances as precursors to greater singlehood: high education levels in women and lack of employment in men. His reading is that male partnership formation is strongly linked to having a stable job, while for women it operates in reverse.

Why male unemployment breaks partnership

A man without a stable job does not compete on equal terms, and the effect is visible in statistics before it is in discourse. Emancipation in Spain remains largely linked to forming the first partnership: if that partnership does not form, leaving home is delayed. This creates a funnel that is difficult to escape, as unemployment delays cohabitation, and late cohabitation delays childbirth.

Some add to this equation the weight of dating apps and the expanded potential catalog. The argument, repeated in various forms, suggests that a portion of the most sought-after profiles captures most of the attention, while the rest are left in the background. It is a hypothesis with significant traction but little verification in official data.

Why more female education means fewer partners

The second vector is more uncomfortable to discuss, as it points not to a money problem but to a change in expectations. The study notes that the more women study, the later and less frequently they form a stable partnership for cohabitation. A definition of hypergamy repeated by some debate participants states that a doctor has no problem pairing with a nurse, while female doctors with high positions are not seen pairing with bricklayers.

The usual criticism of this reading is that it confuses stable partnership with sporadic relationships, and that people without cohabitation are not without emotional life. Miret himself points this out: we spend more time single than ever, but not necessarily more time without relationships. The difference between cohabiting and pairing is what determines the headline.

Rent blocks the first partnership

Among the causes of social change, the analysis lists longer education years, lack of job stability, shortage of affordable housing, and a loss of importance of the family as a vital project compared to other personal costs. The phrase summarizing the economic part is signed by a 40-year-old woman who claims she has not met anyone who makes her think the situation will be better than it is now.

The other testimony from the report is even more concrete: living alone, yes, but not spending 70% of the salary. When rent consumes that portion of the paycheck, cohabitation ceases to be a romantic project and becomes a financial operation.

Who investigates the phenomenon and who reproduces

The Barcelona Centre for Demographic Studies has invested in the question: a research project spanning five years and several European countries, including Spain, to measure singlehood at all life stages—breakups, divorces, widowhood, and relationships without cohabitation—. The framework is no longer the family, but its absence.

In parallel, a segment of the public carries a harder debate: the idea that generational replacement is being covered by environments with greater religious faith, while the rest of society is left behind. This thesis repeats in the margins of demographic analysis, without support in the data provided by the original study.

Conclusion

Given these factors, it can be expected that the permanent celibacy rate will continue to rise for a few more years, especially if housing and job stability do not change. The caveat is obvious: the same delay that undermines cohabitation can be reversed if rent moderates, and no one has yet measured how much of this phenomenon is cultural and how much is simply expensive.