Poor, less-educated Americans — especially women — increasingly are facing the prospect of growing old alone amid declining overall marriage rates and mounting financial pressures, a variety of researchers say.

Rising educational inequality and looming difficulties with Social Security and Medicare contribute to feelings of isolation and loneliness that lower-income people bear, researchers say.

And marriage without divorce — long regarded as a cornerstone of financial and emotional stability — has become “concentrated among better-educated, better-off people,” said Rosemary Hopcroft, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

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“The women and men who don’t get married tend to be of lower socioeconomic status. … It’s becoming more and more a privilege for a few,” she added, noting that divorce is more likely for women who don’t have high earnings.

Ms. Hopcroft and others noted that since women statistically live longer than men, the poorer and less-educated among them are becoming more vulnerable as they age without the support traditionally provided by marriage and family.

“Well, part of the problem is these women are more likely to be less-educated women. So, you know, it’s the problems that face less-educated people: There are fewer jobs. They’re less well-paid,” Ms. Hopcroft said. “So, I mean, this is part of the issue — that marriage is becoming concentrated among better-off people.”

Mary, a 64-year-old San Diego native, has experienced this firsthand. After several lengthy relationships but never marrying, she once thought she might retire. But as a full-time doula without a college degree, she never made enough money to feel she could.

Now she says she is “doomed” to work until she physically cannot. “I can’t live without insurance,” Mary said.

“I have to take care of myself. Fortunately, my job isn’t terribly high-stress, but it’s not enough in California for me to sit back and relax anytime soon,” she added.

She said she hasn’t minded not having a husband, but admits she would have enjoyed some benefits.

“The extra income would have been nice,” said Mary, who cares for her widowed mother.

Mary’s story isn’t uncommon. As marriage rates continue to decline among all groups, the number of single, older adults facing financial insecurity will rise.

“Low-income single women have never been especially well off,” said Patrick Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, noting that institutional aid that once supported them in old age is starting to crumble.

Mr. Brown noted that more than three-quarters of young adults with only a high school degree were married in 1970. Today, that figure has dropped to about one-third.

He emphasized that this shift is more than just a cultural trend and has profound financial ramifications. He says housing unaffordability is largely to blame.

“High housing costs disproportionately penalize young couples and new parents with children,” said Mr. Brown, whose work with the Life and Family Initiative aims to develop a pro-family economic plan.

And housing affordability is directly linked to family formation, with higher home prices making it difficult for lower-income individuals to afford stability and family, according to Mr. Brown.

For instance, a $10,000 increase in a home’s price led to a 5% increase in fertility rates among homeowners but a 2.4% decrease among renters, among whom lower-incomes are more likely, according to Mr. Brown.

And building these kinds of assets not only help incentivize stability and marriage but also help marriages survive and thrive, according to research by the American Economic Journal.

A paper by AEJ researchers Jeanne Lafortune and Corinne Low shows that policies like no-fault divorce make wealth a more significant factor within the marriages that do occur.

For working-class couples, these changes have reduced the economic advantages of marriage. In contrast, wealthier couples benefit from assets like homeownership, which provide stability and protect the lower-earning spouse, even when divorce is easier to obtain.

Joshua McCabe, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center, noted that older and single poor people will soon encounter the stark realities of their own health.

“So, a lot of people talk about childcare and the absence of a spouse, but I think for the elderly population, the big ones I think about are health programs. As you get older, your health and your mobility decline,” Mr. McCabe said. “You may have access to things like home health aids and other sort of health supports, but even those are going to assume there’s some amount of kinship care or family care involved.”

Looming shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare threaten to compound the difficulties, as the programs serve as lifelines for older Americans, especially those without the financial support of a spouse.

Social Security’s combined trust fund is expected to run out by 2035 unless policymakers balance the program’s costs and revenues, according to data from the Urban Institute. Mr. Brown said that would be done by raising taxes, which would help ease the problem in what he deemed “the medium term.”

If the trust fund were depleted, Social Security would be able to pay only 83% of scheduled benefits, spelling trouble for the 81 million retirees and people with disabilities who rely on it, according to data from the Urban Institute.

Poor people would be hit hardest. The Urban Institute projected earlier this year a 50% increase in the number of Social Security beneficiaries living in poverty.

Medicare faces similar challenges. A recent report from Medicare trustees indicates that the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, which underpins Medicare, is expected to run out by 2036.

If that fund were depleted, Medicare would be able to pay only partial benefits for hospital stays, nursing home visits and home health care, leaving millions of seniors with increased out-of-pocket costs.

Dr. John Cuddeback, a philosophy professor at Christendom College who writes extensively on home life and family at his blog LifeCraft, suggests looking back at a tradition that once provided support for unmarried people: living with extended family.

“Once upon a time, it was normal for an unmarried sibling to live with a family of a sibling,” he told The Washington Times. “’Auntie So-and-So,’ especially an unmarried woman, was often a very important part of the household.”

Mr. Cuddeback says that as the number of unmarried women grows, society should reconsider the role they can play within extended families. He suggests that unmarried women might find renewed purpose and connection by becoming part of their sibling’s household.

“Maybe there’s more reason than we realize to live in a household as an aunt,” he said, adding that the arrangement could benefit the unmarried individual and the family.

“It gives the children some place to go and have a rich relationship,” Mr. Cuddeback said, likening it to the benefits children experience from having grandparents present.

“Meaningful relationships are just harder to find as, you know, you age and start having other goals,” said Georganna, an unmarried 25-year-old Nashville native working in film production. She told The Times she feels an intense reliance on her family.

“If you’re a single adult, basically your means for meeting people who just want to be in your life because they like you get smaller and smaller,” she said.

Without the social framework provided by marriage and family, many single women are left to rely on professional or intellectual circles for companionship, groups that have become less available as she has aged, she said.

Georganna pointed out that these connections often lack the depth and long-term investment that family relationships bring, leaving many single adults without a reliable support system. “And what do you do, as an older single woman?”

Indeed, research from Ginevra Floridi, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, and Albert Esteve of the Center of Demographic Studies in Barcelona shows that people born after 1980 are spending more time living with extended family, a return to past norms that may offer a lifeline for older women.

Living with kin would not only alleviate loneliness but also help offset living costs for those in lower socioeconomic groups, who often struggle to make ends meet.

By joining extended family households, unmarried women and others without traditional family structures could share financial responsibilities, reducing the individual burden of housing, utilities, and caregiving, Mr. Cuddeback said. That would provide much-needed economic relief, especially for those unable to rely on the financial support of a spouse or their own children, he added.

“As the reality of unmarried older people grows, can we take a new look as a society and as individuals at reevaluating: how do we household?” Mr. Cuddeback said. “Maybe there’s more reason than we realize to live in a household with unmarried family members. Clearly, this can be a great gift — in both directions.”