The Many Ways Single People Are Treated Unfairly at Work

Is it okay to ask singles to cover for their married coworkers? What about paying singles less? In a pandemic, should singles be allowed to opt out even if they are not in a risk category?

I’ve been studying singlism for a long time. Sometimes I think I’ve heard all the stereotypes, all the unfair expectations, and all the examples of discrimination against single people, and nothing will surprise me. But then I get surprised all over again.

That happened when someone emailed me, a few months before the pandemic, to see whether I would answer some questions about singles in the workplace. I’m not going to name him, but he is someone who has written a lot and whose thinking is taken seriously. When I first read his questions, I thought he wasn’t serious. Maybe he was just trying to get a rise out of me. But no, he was serious.

First, I’ll list three of the questions I was asked, so you can take a look for yourself and see what you think. Then I’ll share my answers. I’m also adding one more question, not from the person who asked me the first three, about what is expected of single workers during the pandemic.

How Would You Answer These Questions?

#1 “A boss tells an employee, “You’re single. You don’t have to race home for your spouse or kids. Someone’s got to get this work done tonight, so it seems fair I ask you to stay late.” That boss might also use that rationale to have you travel on weekends, show up on holidays, even accept a transfer to some far-flung place. But isn’t that fair?”

#2 “Sometimes, it’s not the boss who’s asking more of the single employee. A coworker who, for example, wants to leave early to take their kid to the doctor, or even to the soccer game, is more likely to ask a single coworker to pick up the slack. That co-worker might argue that our organization always talks about being family friendly and that we’re a team, so we should all pitch in in the same way that if a coworker gets a serious disease and can’t be terminated because of the Americans with Disabilities act, people have to pitch in. We in this area talk all the time about community, the collective. Shouldn’t it be from those with the most to those with the least?” [Bella’s note: It is not true that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires coworkers to pitch in to cover for people with disabilities.]

#3 “The bias against single workers can even extend to pay. An employer might think, “You’re single and so you have fewer expenses than my employees with partners who may be stay-at-home parents with children, I only have so much budget. It’s fair I pay people with stay-at-home spouses with kids more–they need the money more. I mean society wants workplaces to be family-friendly. After all, our children are our future. And right or wrong, women do most of the child rearing. And women are otherwise getting the short end of the stick. In paying parents more, I’m just being a good feminist.” What would you say to that boss?”

#4 [This question is not from the same person who asked the first three.] During a pandemic, if you are single, should you be able to opt out even if you are not in a risk category?

#1: Is It Unfair to Expect Single People to Cover for Everyone Else at Work?

“A boss tells an employee, “You’re single. You don’t have to race home for your spouse or kids. Someone’s got to get this work done tonight, so it seems fair I ask you to stay late.” That boss might also use that rationale to have you travel on weekends, show up on holidays, even accept a transfer to some far-flung place. But isn’t that fair?”

What’s interesting about that question is that today, in the 21st century, people will ask it totally unselfconsciously and unapologetically. That includes the most progressive and open-minded people, people in the intellectual vanguard, who would never in a million years see themselves as being unfair to other people.

Many people still don’t understand unfairness to single people — what I call singlism — so it is easier to explain by thinking about it in terms of prejudices we do understand.

Imagine if you had instead substituted “gay” for single. Which bosses would ever say — “hey, you’re gay. You don’t have anyone. Why don’t you come in tonight so my nice, hetero employees can go home. You’re gay — you couldn’t possibly have anything worthwhile to do with your time. And why don’t you also cover the holidays and the travel on the weekends, because how could you possibly have holiday plans or weekend plans? And how could you, gay person, possibly have a community or roots in this community? If I need to transfer someone, it is going to be you, and not my heterosexual employees, who I value so much more.” Just about every employer would know better than to say anything like that, and I hope that most would not think that way, either.

But when you say “single” instead of gay, suddenly it is okay. We are not tuned into singlism the way we are tuned in to heterosexism or sexism or racism. But the issues are the same. As a single person, I have people in my life who matter to me. I have a life. My evenings, my weekends, my holidays matter to me. I have now lived in Santa Barbara for 20 years. I have settled here. For a boss to say that my time, my life, my attachment to my community are all less valuable than a married person’s — well, that’s shameful. I think it should also be illegal.

You also asked whether it is fair to ask single people to cover for married people in the workplace in all the ways you described. My answer? Not even close to fair. Your question seems to assume the worst stereotypes about single people — that if they don’t have a spouse or kids, that means they don’t have anyone. But single people DO have people in their lives who matter to them. Your question also seems to be based on the stereotype that single people simply don’t have a life. That they have nothing to race home to. Or that nothing they are doing could possibly be more important than running home to have dinner with a spouse. Or that my time, and what I want to do with it, doesn’t matter. It assumes that single people never have holiday plans. By saying, “hey, why not transfer the single person,” you are erasing all of the ties and the roots that single people establish in the places where they live, and telling them that none of that matters if they don’t have a spouse. Well, it does matter.

#2: Should Single People Have to Stay Late to Cover for Their Married Coworkers?

“Sometimes, it’s not the boss who’s asking more of the single employee. A coworker who, for example, wants to leave early to take their kid to the doctor, or even to the soccer game, is more likely to ask a single coworker to pick up the slack. That co-worker might argue that our organization always talks about being family friendly and that we’re a team, so we should all pitch in in the same way that if a coworker gets a serious disease and can’t be terminated because of the Americans with Disabilities act, people have to pitch in. We in this area talk all the time about community, the collective. Shouldn’t it be from those with the most to those with the least?” [Bella’s note: It is not true that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires coworkers to pitch in to cover for people with disabilities.]

A worker can always ask a coworker to cover for them. But it should not be a one-way street. A single person without kids should be able to leave work early just as often as anyone else. The arrangements should be mutual. You want me to cover for you? Sure. But then you cover for me.

Maybe every employee should have the same number of early leave days, just as they should all have the same number of vacation days. And no one should have to justify their request, just as you don’t have to justify taking the vacation days that everyone is owed.

Of course, there are genuine emergencies and we should all be sensitive to them and helpful. But I might not see a kid’s soccer game as an emergency.

So in your analogy, are you saying that married people are disabled and single people are their able-bodied co-workers who need to pitch in to help?

The kind of community you are describing is one in which people with children have all the special privileges and single people without children are servants, working at their pleasure. I’ve never lived in the area you described. I’ve visited, though, and I interviewed people for my book, How We Live Now. I never got the impression that people there see single people without kids as the ones who should be at the beck and call of people with kids. My impression has always been that they are inclusive and respectful.

By the way, your questions seem to assume that “single” means “no kids” and not-single means that they have kids. But many single people have kids and many married people do not.

#3: Is It Okay to Pay Single People Less Than Their Married Coworkers?

“The bias against single workers can even extend to pay. An employer might think, “You’re single and so you have fewer expenses than my employees with partners who may be stay-at-home parents with children, I only have so much budget. It’s fair I pay people with stay-at-home spouses with kids more–they need the money more. I mean society wants workplaces to be family-friendly. After all, our children are our future. And right or wrong, women do most of the child rearing. And women are otherwise getting the short end of the stick. In paying parents more, I’m just being a good feminist.” What would you say to that boss?”

That’s interesting that you would make that assumption about my expenses. Many years ago, I had a department chair who assumed that, too. I was at a university that made professors’ salaries public, and I discovered that colleagues who did not have my record were getting paid way more than me. So I went to the department chair with this information and he said, “Bella, I know this is not about the money. I know you don’t need more money.”

Most importantly, pay should be based on job performance, not on someone’s perception of who needs the money more. But even if it were okay to base pay on neediness, which it absolutely is not, he has no idea what my needs might be. As it turned out, at the time of this conversation, my mother had recently been widowed and she was alone for the first time in her life. She never had an income-generating job. She stayed home and raised four kids. For all my department chair knew, I could have been sending her checks. (I wasn’t — she was doing fine — but he didn’t know that.)

In my years of talking to single people and studying the relevant research, I’ve learned about lots of single people who are supporting other people. Sometimes they are covering someone else’s basic living expenses. Other times they are ensuring that people they care about have important opportunities — as, for example, when they fund the college educations of their nieces or nephews.

Here’s something else that’s important: Even if married and single workers are being paid the exact same base salaries, in many instances, the married people are still getting way more in total compensation. That can happen, for example, if you are in a workplace in which married workers can put their spouse on their health insurance plan at a reduced rate, but I, as a single person, cannot add anyone to my plan.

I live alone but suppose I had lived for decades with a close platonic friend, and we were interdependent in every way that married couples are except for the sex. Married people get special benefits my friend and I do not get, and the only difference is that they are supposedly having sex. I don’t think people should get special federal benefits for supposedly having sex.

About your argument that being a good feminist means paying mothers more than single people who are not mothers — wow, I have to admit, it really annoyed me. My first reaction was to say that my definition of feminism does not include discriminating against single people.

But in fact, there have been issues around this matter. The esteemed law professor, Rachel Moran, wrote an important paper called “How second-wave feminism forgot the single woman” (discussed here). And second-wave feminism did care more about married women and mothers than about single women who were not mothers. But that was a mistake, it was not something that bosses should use to justify paying mothers more than women who are not mothers.

#4: Single in a Pandemic: Should You Be Able to Opt Out Even if You Are Not in a Risk Category?

Some kinds of jobs, such as teaching, can potentially be performed either in person or online. But if schools don’t offer all teachers the option of working from home, then who will be granted that privilege and how will that be decided?

The issue has gotten a fair amount of attention lately as it pertains to higher education. Colleges and universities are on the cusp of reopening for the fall term. According to data published in the Chronicle of Higher Education at the end of July 2020, nearly a quarter of the colleges and universities in the U.S. (23.5%) were planning to have courses that convene primarily or fully in person. Another 16% will use a hybrid model, with some in-person teaching and some online teaching. (The numbers change daily.)

Plenty of faculty members are scared. They don’t want to take the risk of getting infected by the students in their classrooms. A spate of articles has appeared, expressing their concerns. Some professors have a spouse whose health, disability, or age puts them at special risk for contracting the virus; they don’t want to bring COVID home to them. Others have sick children and worry about them. Still others are caregivers for vulnerable relatives.

The faculty members worry about themselves, too. If they have conditions that render them particularly susceptible to the coronavirus, they have made that known in their writings or social media posts, or in conversations with reporters.

They are scrambling to find ways to justify staying home and teaching remotely, and still get paid. Sometimes their issues are covered by existing laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Most often, though, they are not. In those cases, it is up to college and university officials to decide who will be allowed to teach remotely.

Single People Often Care for Others, but Those People Aren’t Valued as Much as Spouses

My concern is for professors who are not married, especially if they also do not have kids. Research shows that unmarried adults do a disproportionate amount of the work of caring for aging parents and other people who need help over an extended period of time. But if they are caring for a cousin or sibling or friend, will they be taken as seriously as someone who is caring for a spouse? In laws such as FMLA, those categories aren’t covered at all.

Some professors may be scared enough to consider not showing up, even if that puts their pay or even their job at risk. That’s a more daunting option if you are unmarried, though — you don’t have the possibility of back-up income from a spouse.

Why Should You Have to Disclose Personal Medical Information?

Another issue that is not specific to single people is privacy. Why should anyone have to disclose personal medical information about the people in their lives, or about themselves, in order to be allowed to teach online? It is an argument that is gaining traction, as the New York Times pointed out:

“Many professors are calling for a sweeping no-questions-asked policy for those who want to teach remotely, saying that anything less is a violation of their privacy and their family’s privacy.”

However, those demands do not always result in the desired action. As the Times added:

“But many universities are turning to their human resources departments to make decisions case by case.”

If Decisions Are a Matter of Personal Judgment, Single People Are in Trouble

For single people, case by case decision-making is disturbing. We already know that the stereotype that single people “don’t have anyone” is pervasive, and that it is internalized even by some people in the helping and medical professions. We also know that single people are considered less worthy of life-saving transplants. Are they really going to get fair consideration from the personnel in human resources?

Suppose you are a single person who is not caring for another vulnerable person. Suppose, too, that you are not in any of the categories recognized as putting you at special risk for contracting COVID-19. Does that mean that your concerns about your health should not matter? I’m at risk because of my age, but even if I were younger, I don’t think I would want to take the chance of being exposed. No one is totally immune.

I agree with the professors who want a no-questions-asked policy. No one should have to justify wanting to be cautious when the risks include disease and even death.

Other Workers Are in Much More Difficult Positions

College professors are privileged. They are paid well, and they may have some bargaining power — especially if they are tenured. Many other people on college campuses, such as staff, custodians, and food service workers, have little choice about showing up if they want to get paid. Beyond college campuses are millions of other workers who have minimal say in the conditions of their employment even if they are described as “essential.”

Are the unmarried workers in all those jobs treated less fairly than the married ones? My guess is yes — they, too, are subject to singlism. But it is the elite workers, such as the university professors and the professional athletes, whose opt-out dilemmas are getting spotlighted. They are the ones who have dilemmas. Too often, the other workers only have mandates.

[The answer to #4 was adapted from a column originally published at Unmarried Equality (UE), with the organization’s permission. The opinions expressed are my own. For links to previous UE columns, click here.]

For other writings about singles in the workplace, click here.

[Want to learn more? Take a look at this collection of articles on all sorts of topics relevant to single life. Watch my TEDX talk, “What no one ever told you about people who are single.” Check out my website. Disclosure: Links to books may include affiliate links.]