Single women in Connecticut outnumber single men when it comes to owning their homes, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Single women in Connecticut account for roughly 125,000 owner-occupied housing units, while single men own and live in about 88,000 units, according to an analysis of 2021 census data by financial planning firm LendingTree. In total, Connecticut has about 955,000 owner-occupied housing units.
Julie Vanderblue, owner of Vanderblue Real Estate, said she has seen a trend in the growing number of single women who own homes and investment properties.
“I just feel like there are more women in the workforce than ever before, and they are taking control of their own lives and their futures,” Vanderblue said. “There are probably, after COVID, a rise in divorces, so more single women. Younger women are starting to purchase their own homes more than they used to before or if they get married.”
The difference between the share of homes owned and occupied by single women compared to homes owned and occupied by single men is nearly 4%.
There are various potential reasons behind the disparity in single homeownership, including marriage status and age.
Women may prioritize home ownership more than men, leading them to make sacrifices elsewhere in their lives to afford a home, according to LendingTree.
April De Simone, a design practitioner with a focus on intersectionality in architecture, said various factors may contribute to women owning more homes in the state, including whether a woman is divorced or widowed.
“It becomes a very skewed indicator if we don’t unpack what single means and who has gotten their homes,” De Simone said.
De Simone said that she knows many women who became homeowners after acquiring the property in divorce settlements and that parsing through the data further is required to capture a full picture of homeownership in the state.
“What’s the single woman demographic, and what is the acquisition tract of the property?” De Simone said. “Where they’re living, what’s their monthly cost?”
Longevity is also a factor, as recent census data shows that women are twice as likely as men to report being widowed.
