It's been a long time since single adulthood was just a hurried way station between adolescence and marriage. Today the median age of first marriage is rising for both men and women, and singles make up 41% of American adults 18 and over. In fact, most Americans can expect to spend fully half of their adult lives unmarried.

Whether it's intentional or not, 19% of men and 40% of women over 65 live alone. This includes people who may be divorced, widowed, or just temporarily without a partner.

In this issue, the actuaries cited several points behind their observation. They detailed that the wage history differences, the greater possibilities of surviving longer than the spouse, the occurrence of still being single during retirement, and the greater probability for the women not to be included in the workforce, albeit temporarily are the indications of differences causing women's benefits to shrink smaller as compared to that of the men folk.

An article in both Women's eNews and AlterNet discusses the reasons why many women don't vote. In actuality, more women vote than men. And that's great news! The problem is that significantly lower numbers of unmarried women vote, compared to married women.