The author (not pictured) invited her now-husband to hike together.
The Good Brigade/Getty Images
After getting a divorce in 2019, I realized I didn't know how to meet someone new.
I saw a friend from college was hiking, an activity I was starting to enjoy.
I asked if I could tag along with him on a hike, and that was the start of our relationship.
I wondered a lot about my future dating life between being separated andgetting my divorcein 2019.
If you asked me about dating again pre-pandemic, I would have said that I had no idea how to meet someone new. A coworker had looked at me after I confessed I was getting a divorce and said I'd bedating someone newin just six months. Six months later, I still wasn't dating anyone new.
By the time my divorce was finalized, I had thought a lot about "getting back on the horse" when it came to dating. The stay-at-home orders and COVID-19 quickly put an end to my curiosity.
I started hiking to get outside
In the early days of the pandemic, like so many others, I spent my time alone or with those in my pod, escaping to the great outdoors. I hadn't been much for the outdoors before, but it seemed like the thing to do, and I found I was actuallyinterested in hiking.
One thing I heard along the way was a warning; my mother told me I wasn't allowed to go hiking alone. She was too afraid that I'd fall,get hurt, and end up dying alone. Honestly, even as I rolled my eyes and muttered "ugh, mom" under my breath, I knew she was right. It wasn't smart for me to do that as an inexperienced hiker.
The author asked an old friend if she could tag along on hike.
Courtesy of the author
Instead, I ventured out with friends in my pod or other people I knew. I kept to myself. I was focusing on me, not on dating. One day, I saw a post on Instagram froma friend I'd known since college. I looked up his profile. He was hiking too, and his photos were incredible. I wanted to go where he was going.
I asked him to go on a hike together
One particularly slow workday in September, I worked up the nerve to send him a direct message. As I typed, I asked myself what the worst he could say to me: a no? Then I'd be in the same place I was now. If he said yes, I'd be going somewhere amazing.
The note I typed was blunt. I straight up said, "My mom told me I can't go hiking alone. Could I tag along with you? I promise to do social distancing or masking if that makes you more comfortable."
He wrote back, and we laughed about how parents are sometimes. He also agreed to meet up. We chose a time and place. I was pumped.
Then, the week before we were meant to go hiking, fires tore through our state and then our town. Plans shifted, then dissolved. The skies turned an unnatural shade of orange, and being outside made my eyes burn and my throat tight. We would not be hiking together. Instead, I packed a "go bag" and anxiously watched the news.
After the fires were put out, weeks passed, and I returned to focusing on myself and a big work project. I tried to reschedule our hike, but life has a habit of getting in the way of your best-laid plans.
One December day, I was in the thick of it at work, and he popped back into my mind. I recalled my inner conversation with myself back in September. What's the worst he could say? It hadn't happened once, and I was OK. I might as well shoot my shot. I sent another DM, and he responded that he was available.
We hiked after our wedding
We made plans for the day after Christmas. He warned me it might be wet and soggy, but I assured him I would be prepared. I made it my motto: weather is not a deterrent to fun.
We hiked up a portion of a local trail I never knew existed. We caught up on all the things we missed out on in the years since we'd seen each other last. We fantasized about where we'd want to travel to when things were "normal" again. We both said Hawaii. I stole sideways glances at him as I realized he was someone I really wanted to know better.
Falling in love snuck up on me while I was putting miles on my hiking boots, and even though I rolled my eyes at my mom's warning, I have her to thank for setting me up on my first date with my now husband. The day after our wedding, we hiked that same trail again.
Buckley and his family moved into their new home on their Malibu property in June 2021, even as construction on it continued.
Courtesy of William Buckley
Rebuilding what's been destroyed by a wildfire is supremely challenging, victims said.
Efforts have been hindered by underinsurance, permitting delays, and the rising costs of materials.
Fire victims also struggle with the emotional toll of losing their homes and fear of future disasters.
When Bill and Leslie Bixley lost their Malibu home of 20 years to a wildfire, they knew they would rebuild. But they didn't know they'd face years of red tape and heartache.
"The initial shock of losing material possessions is rough," said Bill, a retired teacher. "But the roughest part was getting the permits and getting through the bureaucracy."
BI talked with four homeowners who lost their houses to the 2018 Woolsey fire in LA and Ventura Counties about what it's been like to piece their homes back together — and whether it was worth doing.
Two families told BI that if they'd known how challenging the rebuilding process would be, they might have walked away years ago. But two others said they're glad they held onto their properties and rebuilt the lives they had there. They all said that rebuilding was much more challenging than they'd hoped.
"I don't know if there's anybody I've talked to who lost their place and went through any of this that it didn't completely change their life and traumatize them in some way," Bill Bixley said.
William Buckley's Malibu home was destroyed by the 2018 Woolsey fire.
Courtesy of William Buckley
Struggling with underinsurance
Fortunately, all four families who lost their houses had home insurance. But some of them discovered after the fire that their insurance policies wouldn't cover the full cost of rebuilding — or of the personal belongings they lost.
William Buckley, a Malibu native who works in financial services, said he had a good experience with his provider — AAA home insurance — after the fire. It was quick to send him his initial payouts and responsive to his requests.
"We were never left in the lurch," Buckley said. "We were never left holding an invoice and waiting for money."
Jon Krawczyk's Malibu property after the Woolsey fire.
Courtesy of Jon Krawczyk
But Buckley quickly learned that he was underinsured. While he ultimately received about $1.1 million in insurance payouts, he said, he spent about $1.6 million, he said. He took out a FEMA disaster relief loan and got much-needed cash from Southern California Edison's $2.2 billion legal settlement. But he and his wife still depleted their savings to cover the rest of the costs. They weren't alone. "Every one of my neighbors I knew was underinsured," Buckley said.
Richard Gibbs, a film and TV composer and owner of Woodshed Recording studio, had a much less positive experience with his home insurance provider, State Farm. Gibbs struggled to get the company to cover rent on the temporary home he and his family wanted to live in. When Gibbs realized that he'd lost all of his original scores, which an appraiser valued at $2.1 million, State Farm refused to reimburse more than $5,000 for them, Gibbs said.
The problem of underinsurance is widespread: A study published last year of wildfire-related insurance claims in Colorado found that nearly three-quarters of those affected by the Marshall Fire of 2021 weren't fully covered by their policies. Rebuilding a home in the future — and replacing everything in it — often costs much more than its current value, as estimated by an insurance company. Policies that cover the cash value of a home rather than the full cost of replacing it often leave homeowners without enough funds to rebuild. Gibbs and his wife ended up suing State Farm for allegedly underpaying and delaying their claims. They settled for an amount Gibbs said he couldn't disclose.
When Gibbs talks to other homeowners worried about a potential future wildfire, he tells them all one thing: "Make sure that your insurance policy truly covers your house in case it burns down because most do not," he said.
State Farm didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Buckley and his family moved into their new home on their Malibu property in June 2021, even as construction on it continued.
Courtesy of William Buckley
An endless permitting process
Some fire victims struggled with city and other government permitting processes to rebuild, despite local authorities' promises to fast-track them.
Jon Krawczyk, a metal sculptor who also lost his home in Malibu, said authorities required him to rebuild the same structures he had before, even though he wanted one building instead of three and less square footage.
"There was no wisdom," Krawczyk said of the permitting process, adding that local authorities weren't flexible with the rules, even when his plans would've resulted in less construction.
Ballooning construction costs
Many fire victims said the cost of construction was ultimately much higher than they'd expected. Some homeowners were in the middle of the rebuilding process when COVID-19 hit, and demand for housing, construction materials, and labor soared. The pandemic also snarled building material supply chains, sending prices even higher.
Buckley and his family moved into their new home in June 2021, even as they continued construction on it. "It was just a structure in a rubble field, basically," he said. The home and landscaping were completed at the end of 2023, almost exactly five years after the fire.
William Buckley's home was finally completed five years after the November 2018 Woolsey fire.
Courtesy of William Buckley
As Gibbs hopes to finally break ground on his new home this year, he's bracing for increased competition for building materials and labor, given that many victims of the Palisades and Eaton fires will likely also want to start rebuilding as quickly as possible.
Moving on — or away
Despite designing their new homes to be far more resistant to future fires, some who've rebuilt live in fear of the next major disaster. Many are also struggling with the lasting emotional toll of losing their homes.
The devastating LA wildfires this winter, which also destroyed homes in Malibu, have exacerbated that fear. It's not just neighborhoods nestled into the hills or near the urban-wildland interface that can feel vulnerable these days.
"You could be in the middle of LA, and a fire can sweep through the neighborhood with the kind of winds we have," Buckley said.
The Bixleys were so traumatized by their experience — and fearful of future fires, that they moved out of Malibu and leased their home to victims of the most recent LA fires. They're living in a rental home in Fresno as they decide what to do next.
Krawczyk and his wife are hoping to move into their new home this spring, six and a half years after the fire.
Courtesy of Jon Krawczyk
"This last fire was so horrific, and we've just been so stressed out and traumatized from the experience, even though we've done everything in our power to fireproof our house," Leslie said. "We went through all that heartache, but it still didn't take away the pain and the fear of this happening."
Many of the Bixley's neighbors never rebuilt their homes, so their neighborhood still "looks like somebody who's lost half their teeth," Bill said. The couple said they know many others who also fear future fires and want to leave Malibu.
Gibbs said he's also considered leaving LA County because of "the insanity of the costs and insurance" made worse by the recent fires.
Buckley said that, for a long time, it was hard for him to talk with anyone who hadn't lost their home to a fire about the experience. He felt he'd joined a "club" of fire victims.
"At first, you don't even want to communicate with your old club, you're in this different club now," Buckley said. "They don't understand the extent of the trauma. It's hard to communicate that to anybody."
Have you been affected by a wildfire or other natural disaster? Contact this reporter aterelman@businessinsider.com.
The number of people eating all their meals alone is rising.
RichVintage/Getty Images
About one in four US adults said they ate all their meals alone the previous day, new analysis found.
The 2025 World Happiness Report found solo dining spiked during the pandemic and remains elevated.
Sharing meals is a stronger predictor of well-being than income or unemployment, it found.
More and more Americans are dining alone, and researchers say doing so regularly can be a better predictor of unhappiness than unemployment.
"Asking people if they shared at least one meal last week can tell us more about their overall life evaluation than knowing if they are unemployed," the researchers said in the 2025 World Happiness Report, published on Thursday.
It found that 26% of US adults surveyed said they ate every meal alone the previous day. That figure rose by more than 50% between 2003 and 2023.
The data was drawn from the American Time Use Survey, which collected responses from about 235,000 US adults over the two-decade period.
The report said people who share more meals with others report significantly higher levels of life satisfaction, and lower levels of negative affect. That's the case across ages, genders, countries, cultures, and regions.
The rise in solo dining started well before the COVID-19 pandemic, with a spike in 2011, before reaching some of the highest levels at the height of the pandemic. It's continued rising, especially for young people, with the highest levels of dining alone recorded among those under 35 — along with those who live alone.
In 2023, nearly 70% of people who lived alone reported eating all their meals alone, compared to 20% for those who lived with others.
By order of comparison, the US ranked 69th globally in meal sharing, standing behind Canada, which ranked 53rd with 8.4 meals shared a week, and ahead of the UK, which ranked 81st.
Causes and impact on happiness
The report attributes the rise in solo dining to the rise in the number of people living alone, irregular work schedules, and the rise of remote work.
While smartphones and social media are often blamed for reduced social interaction, the report found no direct correlation between the platforms' launches in the mid-2000s and the rise in eating alone.
The report also analyzed survey responses for 142 countries collected by the Gallup World Poll in 2022 and 2023. It found that sharing more meals is strongly linked to higher life evaluations and better emotional health across regions, genders, and age groups, making it a key factor in overall life satisfaction.
The happiness report finds that meal sharing is a stronger predictor of well-being than income and unemployment combined, and dining alone has a greater impact on life evaluation than unemployment.
The US slipped to its lowest ranking in the 13-year history of the World Happiness Report, landing at 24th place, partly because of the rising number of people eating alone.
Another issue highlighted in the report is the US's high and increasing rate of "deaths of despair" — preventable deaths from suicide, alcohol abuse, and drug overdose.
Since the report's launch in 2012, the US has never ranked in the top 10, with its highest ranking being 11th in the report's first year.
A woman works at an early model desktop computer made by Servus, circa the 1970s.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
During the early 20th century, women's employment was affected by war and advancements in tech.
In the 1960s and 1970s, women were able to expand their horizons and career opportunities.
Vintage photos from the past 100 years show how their roles have changed.
Working women have come a long way in the last 100 years.
In the 1920s, women entered the workforce in astonishing numbers as a result of the industrial revolution.
Then, as men were sent off to war, more women got involved in the wartime effort in factories and other professions previously dominated by men.
Women's equality movements throughout the 1960s and 1970s gave working women even more opportunities, and in recent years, the gap between men and women in the workforce is closing, according to data released by the US Bureau of Labor.
These vintage photos show how the role of women in the workforce has evolved in the last 100 years.
In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, more women than ever began to leave the household and go out to work.
Women postal workers at a sorting office, circa 1920.
FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jobs commonly held by women included postal clerks, who sorted letters and packages. While it wasn't uncommon for women to work in post offices, very few women actually delivered mail.
The US Postal Service reported that in 1920, only 5% of the nation's 943 village carriers were women.
As local postal delivery was gradually phased out in favor of larger city delivery, most of the remaining women village carriers either resigned or were transferred to clerk positions.
Many women also began working in factories.
The operating room of Ladies Rayon Undergarment Factory, 1920.
George Rinhart/Corbis/Getty Images
The US Department of Labor reported that in 1920, women made up about 20% of the labor force, an increase from previous generations.
Many of them were involved in the production and manufacturing of clothing, food products, and tobacco products.
Women of color, on the other hand, were largely employed in agriculture and domestic service work for much of the early 20th century.
During World War I, women held occupations in domestic and personal service, clerical occupations, and factory work.
Woman working in an office, USA, circa 1921.
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Many women took typing courses to secure higher-paying jobs as secretaries or typists in clerical offices rather than working in factories.
The Encyclopedia of Chicago reported that working conditions, wages, and hours in clerical work were seen as the best at the time.
Clerical work attracted young, literate, mostly white women who would work as typists until they were married, only to be replaced by other young unmarried women when they left their jobs to raise their families.
After the Women's Bureau was established in the US Department of Labor, women had access to more industries.
Gertrude Olmstead from the MGM Studios checks the costume design with the dress being made by the costumer.
As the popularity of silent films began to rise, women found work behind the scenes on movie sets.
The Women Film Pioneers Project wrote that a 1923 edition of "Business Woman" published a list of 29 different jobs that women held in the film industry, apart from actresses.
Job positions included that of a typist, secretary to the stars and executive secretary, costume designer, seamstress, telephone operator, hairdresser, script girl, film retoucher, title writer, publicity writer, musician, film editor, director, and producer, among others.
Women also held jobs as blacksmiths and worked on vehicles.
A female blacksmith at work in her workshop, circa 1920.
Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images
However, most occupations were seen solely as a precursor to marriage.
Among married white women of both native and immigrant backgrounds, only around 10% were in the workforce, History reported.
It was more common for married women of color to hold jobs outside the home, however.
Unemployed women during the Great Depression could join "SheSheShe" camps.
During the Great Depression, several women attended a work camp at Bear Mountain for unemployed, homeless, and single women.
Getty Images
Inspired by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which only allowed men to join in exchange for free room and board, Eleanor Roosevelt started "SheSheShe" camps to help women gain employment in environmental conservation, The Corps Network reported.
Many families during the Great Depression were able to achieve middle-class status by adding another working member to the household — in many cases, a woman.
Women sewing clothes to be sold during the Great Depression, North Platte, Nebraska, November 1937.
Hansel Mieth/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Many women during the Great Depression found work as secretaries, teachers, telephone operators, and nurses.
Women also earned incomes by sewing clothes in Works Progress Administration (WPA) sewing rooms. The rooms manufactured products such as men's trousers, boys' coveralls, baby clothes, women's dresses, and diapers.
By 1945, one in every four married women worked in jobs outside the home.
Women working in a gas mask factory, 1940.
Thomas D. Mcavoy/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Image
During World War II, women assisted in manufacturing wartime necessities like gas masks.
Forbes reported that between 1940 and 1945, women's participation in the US workforce increased from 27% to nearly 37%.
By 1943, women made up 65% of the US aircraft industry's workforce.
A woman working on a Vengeance dive bomber, using a hand drill.
Universal History Archive/Getty Images
Before the war, women were largely in traditionally "female" fields such as nursing and teaching.
After Pearl Harbor, many women entered the armed forces at astonishing rates. In 1943, more than 310,000 women worked in the US aircraft industry, making up 65% of the industry's total workforce, History reported.
Before the war began, women made up just 1% of the industry.
In 1935, women made 25% less than men for government jobs.
A nurse lighting the pipe of US pilot Harold Ingley, lying on a field hospital bed in Italy, September 1, 1944.
Mondadori/Getty Images
A 1935 law titled the National Recovery Act actually required women who held jobs within the government to receive 25% less pay than men in the same jobs.
In 1942, during wartime, the War Labor Board ruled that women would be paid the same as male workers who were now away at war.
However, the war ended before they could receive equal pay.
With no laws to protect female workers from pay inequality, female workers in the 1940s earned around 60% of what their male counterparts made, MarketWatch reported.
Women were largely seen as "supplemental" workers in the 1950s, meaning their income was secondary to their husbands'.
A waitress serving men breakfast in the 1950s.
William Gottlieb/CORBIS/Corbis/Getty Images
Even though there were technically more women in the workforce in 1952 than during the war, women were often paid less and given jobs with less upward mobility than their male counterparts.
After the war, women returned to stereotypically "feminine" jobs. In some cases, jobs were advertised for women only.
A businessman and a secretary in the 1950s.
George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images
Many women were forced to give up the jobs they had worked in during wartime, giving them to male soldiers returning home.
The most popular jobs for women during the 1950s were secretaries, bank tellers or clerical workers, sales clerks, private household workers, and teachers, The Week reported.
Female secretaries in the 1950s gained a reputation for being young and attractive.
In fact, a 1959 quiz from a secretarial training program in Waco, Texas, reposted by The Atlantic, asked women if they have what it takes to be a secretary, including "smiling readily and naturally" and being "usually cheerful" among its requirements.
The 1950s marked the beginning of the "jet age," and many young women found work as flight attendants, then called "stewardesses."
Regular Delta C&S Stewardess Mary Lee Shultz, of Memphis, adjusts a colleague's cap as they both prepare for flight in the operations room, 1956.
Getty Images
Flight attendants during the 1950s became symbols of the golden age of flying — when traveling by air was seen as the height of sophistication and glamour. However, with this "glamorous" career also came a host of sexist protocols.
In 1957, Trans World Airlines dropped its no-marriage rule for female flight attendants. However, many airlines continued to only hire non-married female flight attendants.
While many women joined the workforce, they were nevertheless expected to fulfill their duties at home, in what would be coined "the second shift."
An American housewife in 1960 demonstrated the cleaning power of Vel detergent in a TV ad.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
After women returned home from their secretarial or office jobs, they had another job to do: caring for the children, doing the housekeeping, and, of course, putting a hot dinner in front of their husbands.
This became known as the "second shift." If women didn't hold office or other jobs during the day, they were relegated to being "housewives."
In the 1950s and 1960s, women found creative ways to make their own incomes from their homes.
A Tupperware party in 1960.
Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL/Getty Images
Many suburban women began selling Tupperware out of their own homes in what became known as "Tupperware parties."
"Tupperware ... took those moms out of the kitchen where they were 'supposed to be' and let them enter the workforce, and let them have something outside the home," Lorna Boyd, whose mother Sylvia was an at-home Tupperware seller in the 1960s, told the Smithsonian Institution.
Women were also making history in their careers.
American broadcast journalist Barbara Walters eats a sandwich as she works at her desk in New York in 1966.
Rowland Scherman/Getty Images
In the 1960s, Barbara Walters was a broadcast journalist working in New York City. In 1976, she would become the first woman to anchor a nightly newscast, Variety reported.
Many other women were also joining the journalism field as coverage of the Vietnam War became increasingly widespread.
While technology-based and other computer programming jobs may now be dominated by men, they were considered "women's work" in the 1960s.
Women weave hair-like wires and tiny metallic cores into memory at the Ampex computer products division circa 1960.
Authenticated News/Archive Photos/Getty Images
Smithsonian Magazine reported that "computer girls" became a term for "savvy young women" pursuing careers in computer programming.
Computer programming was seen as "easy" work similar to typing or filing, so many women ended up building the field that would come to be known as software development.
Women soon made up a majority of the trained workforce in the computing industry.
A woman working on a Honeywell tape drive computer, circa 1969.
Underwood Archives/Getty Images
However, the work was seen as "unskilled."
"Women were seen as an easy, tractable labor force for jobs that were critical and yet simultaneously devalued," technology historian Marie Hicks said in her book "Programmed Inequality," The Guardian reported.
In the 1960s, multiple pieces of legislation were passed to protect women in the workplace from discrimination.
An equal pay for women demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, 1969.
Stan Meagher/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Title VII was added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protecting workers from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
In 1963, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was passed in order to protect men and women who perform "substantially equal work in the same establishment" from sex-based wage discrimination.
These measures were especially beneficial to women of color. Up until the 1970s, women of color could be openly discriminated against in the hiring process and were often assigned to providing
"domestic service work" to white families, The Economic Policy Institute reported.
During the 1970s, computing work gained more prestige as the industry realized how valuable computers would become.
A woman works at an early model desktop computer made by Servus, circa the 1970s.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
It meant women were no longer welcome in many computer programming offices.
"They weren't going to put women workers – seen as low-level drones – in charge of computers," Hicks told The Guardian.
Female computer workers, or "computer girls," were gradually phased out and replaced with men, who received higher salaries and more prestigious job titles.
By the 1970s, many women were still fighting for better workplace conditions, equal pay, and more job opportunities.
A businesswoman in the 1970s.
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images
The Atlantic reported that from 1972 to 1985, the number of women working "professional" jobs increased from 44% to 49%. The number of women working "management" jobs nearly doubled, rising from 20% to 36%.
However, in 1970, women still did not earn equal wages to men holding the same positions.
In the 1970s, education became more important than ever for securing a well-paying job.
Nurses and doctors at Pelham Bay General Hospital examine a patient's X-ray in 1975.
Eric Bard/Corbis/Getty Images
After measures were passed that prevented universities and institutions from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, more women were admitted into medical school than in past generations, according to a study published by the British Medical Bulletin.
Other strides were made for women in the late 1970s.
In 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed as an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which meant that women could start building families without fearing how it would affect their careers.
Women in the workforce in the 1980s continued to make strides, but there was still a way to go.
Marilyn Neckes, a former TV producer who changed careers to a stockbroker, in 1984.
Barbara Alper/Getty Images
The Atlantic reported that, in 1985, half of all college graduates were women. However, only 41% of women between the ages of 25 and 44 held full-time year-round jobs.
Even in the mid-1980s, women themselves saw their own careers as inferior to their husbands'.
The Atlantic also cited a 1985 Roper survey that showed only 10% of women said that a husband should turn down a "very good job" in another city "so the wife can continue her job."
However, women of the 1980s made history in their fields. Dr. Mae Jemison was among 15 new astronauts named by NASA and became the first Black female shuttle flyer.
Dr. Mae Jemison is among 15 new astronauts in 1987 named by NASA and the first Black female shuttle flyer.
Getty Images
In 1984, at the Democratic National Convention held in San Francisco's Moscone Center, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated as vice president by a major political party.
Women were encouraged to "do it all" — meaning, hold a successful job as well as maintain a happy and healthy marriage and raise children.
In the 1990s, women overwhelmingly began to be employed in offices and earned higher salaries.
CDC employee working at a computer in 1995.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Computers became increasingly prevalent, reducing the need for secretaries, bank tellers, and retail workers.
Women were also postponing marriage and children until later in life.
Two businesswomen view the latest stock prices on the Nasdaq Wall in 1997.
James Leynse/Corbis/Getty Images
For most earlier decades, women would be married between the ages of 20 and 22, Time reported.
The average age for women to get married rose to 24 in 1990, and by 1997, it was 25.
In 1995, nearly half of all women surveyed for a report by the National Center for Education Statistics said they earned half or more of their total family income.
In recent years, women held more jobs than men in the US workforce.
Woman working in an office building in the 1990s.
Wally Santana/AP Images
Fortune reported that at the start of 2020, 109,000 more women were working than men, and women in the US made up 50.4% of the labor force.
Sectors that traditionally hire women, like healthcare and education, were growing, and other industries previously dominated by men were also hiring more women than ever before.
Forbes reported that 13.8% of mining and logging jobs were held by women, and more women were employed in manufacturing and transportation than in years past.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the women's labor force participation rate to hit a 33-year low in January 2021.
A mural urging people to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
CNBC reported that more than 2.3 million women in the US left the labor force between February 2020 and January 2021, compared to about 1.8 million men who registered as unemployed.
This placed the women's labor force participation rate at 57%, the lowest rate since 1988, according to the National Women's Law Center.
However, the actual number of women who were unemployed may have been much higher due to those who may have left the labor force but were not actively looking for work.
In January 2021, 275,000 women left the labor force, accounting for 80% of all unemployed workers over the age of 20 that month.
According to the NWLC, 8.5% of Black women aged 20 and over were unemployed in January 2021, compared to 8.4% in December 2020 and 4.9% in February 2020.
Adversely, the unemployment rate for white men aged 20 and over was 5.5% in January 2021, compared to 5.8% in December 2020 and 2.7% in February 2020.
By 2025, nearly half of all US employees were women.
A woman operates a small floral business.
AsiaVision/Getty Images
A 2024 report by the Independent Women's Forum said that in 16% of all US households, women are the primary or sole "breadwinners." The report also revealed that 29% of households reported that both male and female spouses earned the same amount of money.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported that in 2025, the unemployment rate for women was slightly lower than the rate for men. Women also have a 57.5% participation rate in the labor force, compared to 67.6% for men.
Many women are also starting their own businesses and choosing entrepreneurship over traditional careers.
Capital Economics' Thomas Ryan expects the housing affordability crisis to persist through 2026.
He said mortgage rates would remain high because of Donald Trump's "inflationary policy agenda."
Capital Economics expects home prices to rise 4% in 2025 and 2026.
The housing market's ongoing affordability crisis may not end next year or even in 2026.
Thomas Ryan, an economist at Capital Economics, said the two driving factors behind the housing affordability crisis — high prices and high mortgage rates — were likely to continue moving higher through the next two years.
"Conditions for would-be homebuyers and sellers will not improve much in the near term," Ryan said in a note on Tuesday.
Ryan estimated that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate would hover around 7% for much of 2025 and probably not dip to 6% until the end of 2026.
That's because of President-elect Donald Trump's "inflationary policy agenda," Ryan said, which has caused markets to expect fewer interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
According to Freddie Mac data, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.81% last week, a significant jump from its 6.08% level about a month before the election.
The impact of the recent rebound in mortgage rates has already been felt in the housing market, with refinancing activity coming to a halt and home-purchase applications reversing the increases seen earlier in the fall.
Ryan said he expected home prices to also continue their record surge, forecasting a 4% increase in both 2025 and 2026.
If those price trends prove accurate, the median-priced house in America would cost about $455,000 in 2026, representing the highest level on record.
Broadly, Ryan said he expected the combination of steadily rising home prices and higher mortgage rates to result in the continuation of "strained affordability" for would-be homebuyers over the next two years.
The on-the-ground numbers are showing up in consumer-sentiment data, such as the University of Michigan's, which asks consumers whether they believe it's a good time to buy a home.
According to the most recent data, less than 20% said they believed it was a good time to buy, representing a marked drop from about 70% just before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.
"With borrowing costs elevated, house prices at all-time highs, and inventory scarce, it is no wonder that households are downbeat about home buying," Ryan wrote.
This story was originally published in December 2024.