Answer: Portland, Oregon. In second place is Seattle. By ‘cat lady’ we mean single ladies with their cat(s).
Here is the top 10 list:
1. Portland, Oregon (9.9%) – this means that almost one in ten women (or ten in one hundred) in Portland live alone with a cat or cats.
2. Seattle (9.3%)
3. Pittsburgh (8.7%)
4. Kansas City, Missouri (8.4%)
5. Denver, Colorado (8.3%)
6. Albuquerque/Santa Fe, New Mexico (8.2%)
7. Minneapolis/St. Paul (7.7%)
7. Harrisburg, Virginia (7.7%)
8. Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida (7.5%)
8. Columbus, Ohio (7.5%)
Notably, the top two are situated on the Pacific Northwest of America. I wonder if that is significant. Is it because in that area people tend to be more open-minded and less stereotypical allowing themselves to express their personal lifestyle tastes rather than falling into the expected and conventional? Or perhaps marriage is less popular in the Northwest and therefore there are more single women disillusioned with cohabiting. But I’ll bow to some else’s superior thoughts or knowledge on that subject. What do you think?
It is also worth noting that there is little difference in the percentages amongst the top ten.
There are unfair negative connotations associated with cat ladies. A lot of people, ironically, stereotype them as frumpy, independent-minded women who prefer cats to humans. This is wrong although like many of us some cat ladies prefer cats to humans and there is nothing wrong with that; common sense really….
Many cat ladies are outgoing, sociable types with many friends and acquaintances. They also tend to be more intelligent than average. Their wisdom informs them that living with a cat is preferable.
The figures above come from a study conducted by Nielsen Scarborough in 2015. The study concerned over 400,000 respondents across the nation.
There are many well-known benefits to living with a cat: a lower heart rate being the best known. There are a list of articles on this so I won’t go over it here.
Perhaps the breakdown of the concept of marriage is one factor for the increased number of single women. There are more single women than wives in the USA and the figure for wives is steadily declining. It is the same in the UK. More single women means more cat ladies.
My thanks to Kelly Shea of the Seattle Times for the illustration.
Cool. At east I’m on the right side of the country… it can be very rainy in Seattle and Portland – what better than a warm fuzzy to curl up next to??
Ahh..it must be the rain! As you say there is nothing nicer than cuddling up to your cat. Thanks Cass.