All my single ladies, I want you to assess your life as a successful, independent, and educated woman in the city of Boston. Because according to a study done by Redfin, its the 9th best place to be in the country for women like you. If you live in Cambridge, even better: Cambridge ranked 3rd out of the 25 listed cities.
As more and more women are going onto higher education (more than men, at this point), and are waiting longer to get married, it’s interesting to see, geographically, where these smart, successful women are ending up in the US. (It’s frustrating to see as well, since a “Top Cities for Successful, Educated, Single Men” would likely never exist, or at least would have very different connotations; but that’s an argument for another day.)
In order to rank the best cities for single and successful women, Redfin looked at the percentages of women in each city who were college educated, had high incomes, and were single and between the ages of 25 and 39. They also ranked the percentage of “single men surplus,” which looks at the ratio of men who are single and between 25 and 39, compared to the percent of women in the same demographic.
Here in Boston, 42 percent of women are college graduates, while 27 percent earn a “high income” (meaning they earn $65,000 a year or more), and 21 percent are single, independent 25-39 year old ladies. The study also includes the top tier employer for such ladies, and in Boston, that award goes to Fidelity Investments. As for that old single-men surplus, the Hub clocks in with a whopping one percent. Hey, at least it’s not negative percent. All of these number figures landed us 9th out of 25 cities, which isn’t all that shabby.
Across the river in Cambridge, however, is a land bursting with even more successful women. In third place, 70 percent of Cambridge ladies are college graduates, with 35 percent earning a high income, and 22 percent are single 25-39 year olds. As for the guys? There’s a 21 percent surplus of single men in Cambridge.
As for the rest of the rankings, Arlington, VA (across the water from D.C.) came in first, while D.C. itself was listed fourth. And sorry, aspiring Carrie Bradshaws of the world, but New York City ranked pretty far down on the list at 18th. (LA was absent, but we are focusing largely on education here.)
The official methodology behind the study:
The top cities for educated, successful, single women was generated using the US Census 2007-2011 American Community Survey data. The ranking is for US cities with greater than 100,000 people. The ranking is calculated based on a combination of: percentage of women with four year college degrees, percentage of women with a salary greater than $65,000, and the percentage of women who are single and between 25 and 39 years old. The single men surplus is not used in the calculation. The top tier employer was based on women in the US Federal Election Commission donor data and the corresponding companies where they were employed.
Here’s the complete list of rankings for the top 25 cities for single, successful women:
1. Arlington, VA
2. Alexandria, VA
3. Cambridge, MA
4. Washington, D.C.
5. San Francisco, CA
6. Seattle, WA
7. Berkeley, CA
8. Atlanta, GA
9. Boston, MA
10. Oakland, CA
11. Jersey City, NJ
12. Minneapolis, MN
13. Pasadena, CA
14. Durham, NC
15. Denver, CO
16. Raleigh, NC
17. Portland, OR
18. New York, NY
19. New Haven, CT
20. Chicago, IL
21. Ann Arbor, MI
22. Irving, CA
23. Austin, TX
24. Charleston, SC
25. Sunnyvale, CA
