Cambridge is the third-best big U.S. city for “single, successful, educated women” to live in, according to the real estate blog Redfin.

“For the last few generations, young women have been attending college in steadily increasing numbers. In the late ’80s, women surpassed men in bachelor’s degree attainment and there has been no looking back. Armed with higher levels of education, single women these days enjoy higher salaries and are waiting longer to get married,” said the site’s Tommy Unger. “With this great opportunity, what cities are these educated, successful, and single women choosing to realize their future and grow their career?”

Well, Arlington, Va., which leads Cambridge in women’s income levels and number of singles like themselves; Alexandria, Va., which also beats Cambridge on income but matches its percentage of singles; and Cambridge itself. (Washington, D.C., and San Francisco round out the top five.) Boston is ninth on the list.

“The great universities of Cambridge draw women from around the world. After graduating, a large number of them stick around and work in financial services or higher education,” says the site’s write-up, pegging the percentage of Cambridge women with four-year college degrees at 70 percent (one percentage point above Arlington, Va.), percentage of women with a salary greater than $65,000 at 35 percent and percentage of women who are single and between 25 and 39 years old at 22 percent of the population. In a bit of sex-focused data that might not be so important in the fifth-friendliest U.S. city for gays, the survey notes that the city has a 21 percent “single-men surplus” – but that figure is not used in the calculation.

The ranking is for U.S. cities with more than 100,000 people and looks at U.S. Census American Community Survey data for 2007 through 2011. The complete list is here.

Still, single women between 25 and 39 years old are not the segment of women leading the pack in single, female homeownership. The site’s Ellen Haberle has that answer:

When you read the latest buzz about the rise in single female homeowners in America, what kind of woman did you picture? If you said “successful, educated twenty-something,” you would be wrong. As it turns out, she isn’t even close to 20. She is over 65. Moreover, homeownership among single women is no recent feat; single women have outnumbered single men in homeownership every single year since 1982, the earliest date of available U.S. Census data. Poof. There goes your stereotype.