The Singles Map

Click on the above for a larger view in a new window. Go ahead - take a look and come back.

This map is from the February 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine and shows the level of imbalances between the sexes of single people through the country.

The two quick observations are that the west coast and the southwest have more single men than single women and the midwest, northeast and southeast have more single women than single men.

Note that the size of the circles is not all that useful since the measurement is in the absolute. (for example, a 10,000 person disparity in New York City really represents a much different description than a 10,000 person disparity in Atlanta - yet the circles are the same size). As a result, the dot size is more of a function of the metropolitan area size than any demographic insight into single people. I'm surprised that National Geographic didn't use a more interesting parameter for circle size like percentage of population. Tsk tsk...

A blog called Creative Class has solicited a number of comments from various people giving reasons for these results. I'll try to summarize the more frequent "reasons" given here. (just reporting, not agreeing!)

• More tech jobs in the west and southwest and there are more men in technology
  
• More immigrant workers in the west and the southwest. These often are single males supporting their families in Mexico
  
• A lot of military in the west and southwest
  
• More creative industry in the east cost that draw women (like fashion, publishing, design, advertising, etc.)
  
• Men are more apt to travel to find their fortune, women are more likely to stay near family. California holds more of a "gold rush" like mentality for some of these men - promises of riches, warm weather, beach babes, ...
  
• Women living longer than men could explain some of the disparity in the older northern cities where the young have left for jobs nearer growth in the south
  
• Cities with high concentrations of African Americans like New Orleans, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, East St. Louis, DC, Baltimore, etc... may have more women because of more single mothers and absent fathers
  

My hunch is the first two reasons (high tech concentrations and immigrant dynamics) above may be closest. Any other ideas out there?