Most people in these jobs have never been married
Ever felt like your job was holding you back from meeting that special someone? Data suggests you may be right.
Of more than 500 jobs tracked by the Census Bureau, Stacker identified the 50 with the highest share of single workers who had never married.
A large proportion of the listed occupations are in the service industry. Several factors may play into this: Many service workers are young and early in their careers and perhaps haven't considered marriage. Service industry employees also work long hours, evenings, and weekends and may find it more challenging to find a partner as a result. However, some blue-collar jobs also made the list.
Moreover, nearly 7 in 10 unemployed individuals have never been married. This statistic includes those who don't have a job and haven't worked in the past five years. Only a few professions had lower marriage rates than the chronically unemployed, so almost any job can bring you closer to marriage than none at all.
Regardless of their occupations, more people than ever are choosing to remain single longer. A record 25% of 40-year-olds had never been married, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, up five percentage points from 2010 and up from just 6% in 1980. People delay marriage for numerous, wide-ranging reasons, from feeling unprepared financially to not wanting to settle down. Overall, most American adults are in a committed relationship, but about 30% remain single.
This analysis uses data from the 2022 American Community Survey, sourced via the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series and Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jobs were ranked by the share of employees in each job who had never been married.
Keep reading to discover the jobs where you're most likely to be single.
