Being single isn’t all that bad — and a study out of the University of Toronto suggests women might handle it better than men.
In a paper published in December, lead author Elaine Hoan, a PhD psychology student at U of T, and psychology professor Geoff MacDonald found that single women have a higher overall well-being than their male counterparts. Being single was defined as anyone not in a romantic relationship at the time of the study.
“The basic findings are pretty straightforward. It’s that, on average, single women are happier than single men,” MacDonald told the Star over the phone.
The pair surveyed almost 6,000 people online, asking questions around four measures of well-being based on their prior research around relationships: how satisfied are people with their current relationship status; how satisfied are people with their life; how sexually fulfilled are people; and how much do people want to be in a relationship. Across all four outcomes, single women participants typically scored higher.
MacDonald noted that the study was primarily focused on heterosexual relationships, but added the research lab him and Hoan are part of are currently examining queer singlehood.
“We do find an overall a fact that there’s some evidence that queer singles are happier than straight singles. But we don’t necessarily know why that is.”
The study also didn’t include any findings on non-binary people, which MacDonald said was due to “so few people” identifying as such in the sample pool.
As for why single women tend to be happier than single men, MacDonald said his and Hoan’s study didn’t seek out a definitive explanation, but that hasn’t stopped them from speculating.
For one, MacDonald said the “boost” men and women get from being in a relationship is likely different due to gender expectations for heterosexual couples.
“When you think about the negative parts of getting into a relationship, more of that might fall on women,” he said, pointing specifically to how women are often expected to do housework. “So there’s kind of less of a cost for women to stay single than there is for men.”
Another reason, MacDonald theorized, was that women generally have more existing friendships outside of a relationship. Yuthika Girme, an associate professor and relationship researcher at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., agrees.
“Those sort of social support effects are an interesting mechanism that explain why single women actually do very well being in a being without a partner because they’re well connected in other ways,” she said.
While Hoan and MacDonald’s findings is good news for single women who are worried they might be ridiculed for not having a partner, MacDonald and Girme said its important to also find ways to improve the well-being of single men, primarily through encouraging more social connections.
“Men tend to orientate more around friendships that are that sort of around an activity-based thing. Like grabbing a beer together or watching a game,” she explained. “As opposed to picking up the phone or having a group chat that’s actually having meaningful conversations about, like, ‘Oh, I had a really bad day today.’ ”
“I think that that’s probably where I would place my money on. But I think we do need more research in this area.”
