97.9 men per 100 women. This is the sex ratio for the whole U.S. resident population in the 2024 American Community Survey one-year estimate. The margin of error is plus or minus 0.1. Men outnumber women in adult groups up to the early 40s. Women outnumber men from the mid-40s on. The ratio counts everyone in a group. It cannot tell you how many people near you are single or looking.
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Why the count starts with more boys
More boys are born than girls. In 2024, the United States recorded 3,628,934 births. The sex ratio at birth was 1,045 male births per 1,000 female births. That is about 104.5 boys for every 100 girls. Birth certificates provide the figure, so it is close to a full headcount.
The round number people often quote is about 105 boys per 100 girls. Pew Research Center describes that as the usual worldwide pattern, with most countries falling between 103 and 107, and the 2024 US figure of 1,045 per 1,000 sits inside that range. If you see a number outside it for the United States, check the year and the source before you use it.
A birth ratio above 100 is a small lead, but it is enough to keep the youngest age groups male-majority for decades. Nothing has to go wrong for that lead to disappear later. It closes on its own as the same people age.
The age flip: where men stop outnumbering women
A single national number cannot show you the next part. Read the 2024 survey one age band at a time, and men outnumber women from birth through the early 40s, the two sexes sit close to even in the late 40s and 50s, and women pull ahead from there. By age 65 and over there are 82.5 men per 100 women.
The crossing point is in the mid-40s. In the 40 to 44 band the ratio is 101.4 men per 100 women, and in the 45 to 49 band it is 99.4. That is the one place in the table where the majority changes hands, and it happens right in the middle of the ages when many people are actively dating.
Past that crossing point, the gap keeps opening. At ages 65 to 69 the 2024 survey counts 90.4 men for every 100 women, and among people 85 and over it counts 59.6, close to three men for every five women. So when someone says "there are more women than men in America," they're right about the country as a whole. It's worth noticing where that majority lives, though: mostly in the oldest rooms of the house, while the rooms full of young adults still lean male.
What drives the flip
Men die younger, on average, and the gap is large enough to reverse a small head start. In 2024, life expectancy at birth in the United States was 76.5 years for males and 81.4 years for females, a difference of 4.9 years. That is the final NCHS mortality estimate for 2024, and the gap narrowed by 0.4 year from 2023.
Life expectancy summarizes one year's death rates across a whole population, so it says nothing certain about any individual. It tells you that death rates run higher for males at most ages. It cannot tell you why for any one person, and we have not tried to assign causes.
Migration also moves the ratio in some age groups and some places, which is part of why states differ so much from each other. The survey does not separate those effects, and we have not estimated them.
States differ more than most people expect
The same 2024 survey publishes a sex ratio for every state. Alaska is the highest at 111.6 men per 100 women, and Delaware is the lowest of the 50 states at 93.0, with Alabama and Mississippi next at 93.4. The District of Columbia, which is not a state, is lower still at 89.7. Across the 50 states that is a spread of about 19 points, and nearly 22 points once the District of Columbia is included.
A whole-population ratio is a poor way to pick a place to live, since it counts everyone in the state whether they date or not. If a state comparison is what you are after, we keep that work on its own pages: see how states compare on the dating pool index and put two states side by side. You can also open one state directly, for example the Alaska dating pool calculator.
Inside a state, counties differ too
Zoom from the state map to the county map and the picture can change color. In the same survey, San Francisco County, California is 106.0 men per 100 women, while New York County, New York is 92.0, Kings County is 91.0, and Bronx County is 89.3. Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska is 126.5.
Those are examples, and they do not make up a national ranking. Smaller places carry wider survey error: the Fairbanks figure has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8, so read it as a loose estimate. The one-year survey only publishes estimates for areas of about 65,000 people or more, so many smaller counties have no figure at all. Taken together, they show how far a national ratio, and even a state ratio, can sit from the place you live.
How the US compares with other countries
The world as a whole runs slightly male. Pew Research Center, using United Nations estimates, puts the typical global balance at about 101 males per 100 females and reports that males outnumbered females in 86 countries in 2021. Migrant labor drives the extremes: Qatar at 266 males per 100 females, the United Arab Emirates at 228, and Bahrain at 164.
At 97.9, the United States sits on the female-majority side of that global average, in the same range as most wealthy countries with long life expectancy. Those Pew and UN figures are a snapshot from 2022, so treat them as a few years old.
What this does and does not tell you about your dating pool
Think of a sex ratio as a headcount taken at the door of a very large room. Everyone who walks in gets counted, whether they are single or married, looking or happily not, drawn to you or to no one in the building, living nearby or far away. So when the survey finds 104.8 men per 100 women at ages 18 to 24, it is describing the size of two crowds. How many people in those crowds are actually available is a question the headcount never asked.
The headcount also leaves marital status out, and that question has its own number. If that is what you came for, read whether there are more single men or women, which filters the same Census data down to unmarried adults before comparing.
One more limit is worth naming. The survey records sex as a two-category response, so these ratios cannot describe non-binary or transgender people separately, which is a property of the source and implies no judgment about anyone counted in it.
If you want a number that reflects your own life, the filters matter more than the national ratio. Set your age range, your state, and whatever else you care about in the dating pool calculator, and read how the estimate is built before you act on it. Read the result as a rough picture of the crowd, not a forecast about your own dating life.
Men per 100 women by age band, 2024
The table may be wider than the screen. Focus it and use the arrow keys to reach every column.
| Age band | Men | Women | Men per 100 women | Which group is larger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 24 | 16,005,442 | 15,265,517 | 104.8 | More men |
| 25 to 34 | 23,360,181 | 22,838,224 | 102.3 | More men |
| 35 to 44 | 23,163,454 | 22,793,431 | 101.6 | More men |
| 45 to 64 | 40,726,327 | 41,783,819 | 97.5 | More women |
| 65 and over | 27,683,311 | 33,561,972 | 82.5 | More women |
| All ages (published) | 168,294,343 | 171,816,647 | 97.9 | More women |
Who is counted? Everyone in the US resident population in that age band, married or not, dating or not. The survey records sex as a two-category response.
How to read it: Read one row at a time. Each band counts a different group of people, so adding or averaging the ratios down the column would mix different rooms.
Download the table (CSV) ↓