I went to a prestigious university, and when we were first dating, my now-husband told me point blank “I don’t have a degree, and you need to decide if that’s important to you. I’m not talking about it anymore.”
I found it pretty jarring at the time, but it was the first time I had to actually confront why I’d assumed that I could only marry someone with an education similar to mine. Ultimately all of those reasons were pretty shallow, and I was able to move past them.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been willing to confront me like that. I’d probably still be unmarried and constantly complaining about how there are no good men out there.
This is a wicked problem when viewed from a societal scale. So much of one's view of the opposite sex can be driven by emotional hurt and personal resentment toward a specific one or a few individuals. I assume that when a young woman is repeatedly used for sex and discarded that her perception of "what men are like" will inevitably make it hard for her to trust/bond. (With a similar dynamic for young men who have a handful of bad experiences with women.)
I don't believe it was addressed in this piece, but the general desire of women for men the same age or older is also relevant. I've read elsewhere that the supply and demand dynamics on Tinder and other dating sites become so unbalanced for moderately successful men (even nerdy types) in their early-30s that there are dozens of women trying to "catch" them. This makes it even less likely that they settle down just when their options are increasing. And attractive, smart, caring women who want to get married arrive at age 30 and find that the 40:60 ratio from college has turned into 10:90 when an "eligible" man means 30+, still single, educated, high salary, tall, etc.
Perhaps there is a way out as it becomes apparent that dating in the age of Tinder/social media has made both women and men miserable. I can see opting out of Tinder, etc. becoming high status for young women. It's hard for me to imagine it becoming high status for most young men, except for those in serious relationship with a woman who is seen as a great "catch" by other men.
How many men were supported by their wives while they got their advanced degrees? That seems to be more common, or at least was in the not so distant past, don't know about now.
"Interestingly, women at colleges where women are more numerous trust men less."
In my opinion this happens when women are too numerous. Many are not considered as dating material, grow angry and distrustful of men (because it can't possibly be them-accoording to their "sisters." Voila! You now have a man hating society filled with feminists and men who agree with them.
In the study by the U of British Columbia sociologist finding women marred to less educated men who earn more... I wonder how many of those women were able to gain more education *because* they married men who could afford to support them in that endeavor.
“people may be less willing to work at any given wage” this is a concept I struggle to wrap my mind around.
The participants in the study are young, and you note their feelings may change in middle age. They’re living with relatives now, surely there will come a point where they must work to survive? Can this entire group sponge off their families for their entire lives? are we at a point in society where people don’t need to work to get their basic needs met? My understanding is that welfare programs provide barley enough for substance, so how is it there’s is this giant group of ppl who don’t have to work to survive?
As an outsider the dating world seems like a bleak hell scape. I have some super woke family and they show me ‘offensive’ wrongthink men on dating apps have put in their text and email exchanges which leads to them ending conversations with men and dating no one. I often think after reading the exchanges - that is not offensive and It’s not surprising these women are single. It’s like they’re looking for any excuse to eviscerate men and say there is no one out there. To be clear everyone should have standards but what I’m seeing is ridiculous.
Also the rise in polyamory I would be interested in reading more articles on it and how this trend is impacting men and women.
When I was in college (last millennium), I recognized that computer games were giving me a false sense of accomplishment so I stopped playing during the semester. Since then, games have become much more sophisticated in their psychology and manipulation. I'm not really surpised that (especially low-status) young men are taken in by these psychological/emotional rewards and even status in online communities when those things are much more difficult to achieve IRL.
The other day a college kid told me he stopped playing video games in high school because he realized the effort he was putting in to "level up" in games could instead be used to level up in real life.
I used to think welfare programs encompassed just food stamps (EBT), section 8 housing and child support payments. Now I occasionally hear of other programs out there I had no idea existed. Those unwilling to find a job and/or mate to support their lifestyle and/or children find every dollar out there. They are pros at this stuff and while they won't get rich, they do find ways to live a decent life as a government dependent.
I recently went to a concert and met a 25-year-old woman who was there with a 38-year-old man. He left to go buy drinks, and she immediately told everyone around her that she met him at an NFL house party and agreed to go out with him because he owned a vintage truck that to her, signaled his wealth. “I was totally wrong about him,” she said, “but now we’ve been dating a couple of months so I don’t know.”
During the evening the guy got totally smashed, went into the women’s bathroom to look for her, and they ended up getting in a shouting match at the concert and he left. She went after him, but all of us knew how much she loved the band and we convinced her to stay for the set, and hopefully convinced her to break-up.
I think women look for financial security above all else in selecting a partner. Education is an obvious indicator that a man will most likely be financially well-off, but for those who exist outside the realm of academia, a vintage truck may work as a substitute.
That was not where I thought this was story was going lol. Thought it as going to be about education being an indicator of even temperament and low aggression (in addition to financial stability).
Of course, some women are golddiggers. but most are not, and are looking for a soulmate, in my opinion.
 A man with a vintage truck might be iinterpreted by some women as indicating he has some appreciation for the finer things in life, other than pick up trucks, football games, etc..
many college educated women end up in toxic relationships with irresponsible men who can't keep a job, penniless artists or musicians, drug addicts, etc. Because they naïvely hope that being patient and supportive those men will shape up and become good partners… and eventually become single mothers after the relationship has broken down.
It is the more realistic women through make sure that doesn't happen despite their inclinations.
You’re absolutely right, anyone with intentions to be with someone just for money will never be happy.
What I’ve seen with women I know is they look for a mate who will provide for them. This doesn’t mean yachts and luxury brands, it just means women are more attracted to men who will provide stability, especially financial stability.
well, I haven't seen that in the women around me. What I see repeatedly, and this is in a highly educated middle-class population is women pairing up with men of lower socioeconomic status, or a more or less equal one.
For some it ends badly and they end up single mothers. For others it works fine the partners share values and interests, and that is what makes it work.
See my freestanding comment about hypergamy and hormones.
Societies across time and space have been obsessed with controlling teenage girls's sexuality and keeping them under strict surveillance because those silly immature girls are likely to run off with some ne-er-do-well rather than the older well-off man their parents want to marry them off to...
Dave Chappelle has a skit: "If it wasn't for the need to impress women, men would be content living in a cardboard box. And why do you think they buy fancy cars? Men drive by a women and then . . . 'Caught you bitch!' "
For all those men interpreting this as women having some deep biological urge to be hypergamous, i.e. mate with men who have high status/earnings, please explain the following facts.
Historically and cross-culturally, women never live as free individuals, they live imbedded in families.
In patriarchal societies, those families tend to be obsessed with controlling the sexuality of their daughters because it is dangerous to the family's material interests.
Once the girl reaches puberty, she is kept under close surveillance, often with chaperones or in purdah, cannot go out alone, etc.
Why? Because the silly girl is likely to be the victim of her hormones and run off with some young ne'er-do-well rather than the sensible choice, i.e. the older, well-off man their parents chose for her and who will give her and her family financial security and social status.
And all societies have stories about the immature, rebellious, boy-crazy teenager who "followed her heart" ran off with that young guy against her parents' wishes and was either abandoned or lived a poor life with him.
And keeps trying to impress on young girls the importance of being obedient and responsible and sensible, i.e. following her head rather than her heart, because marriage isn't about "love".
Most girls do end up following their parents' and society's wishes, and have those arranged marriages, and, we are told, that "works well" and she "comes to love him" eventually.
In more modern and individualistic cultures without arranged marriages, those pressures still exist in a different form.
It is only very recently that women have had the financial independence to be able to consider "following their hearts" rather than their heads in love and marriage, and that complicates things.
but there is still often a conflict between head and heart, the ideal being to "have your cake and eat it too", i.e. a soulmate who is also a financially responsible partner.
I read some asinine comments from feminists on a social media website who were announcing that they weren't worried that boys were now doing poorly in school and succumbing to unsuccessful ways of living, because the feminists figured it was a zero-sum game and boys failing was a win for girls.
I know we relics from the past don't know what we are talking about, but we all grew up assuming that it was primarily the man's job to provide, a man who didn't do so (unless genuine circumstance prevented that) was a failure. Not dissing partnerships in the present day where the woman is the primary breadwinner and the man takes care of the kids, by the way, because if both partners are happy, that's all good.
Thinking about this some more, the gene responsible for whatever "hypergamy" is seen, may be more the one that makes women more agreeable, "sensible" and likely to listen to their families and society's realistic advice, rather than their sexual hormones which are likely to lead them into less materially advantageous relationships.
But the conclusion that "among romantic pairings in which both individuals are educated, they tend to be happier. Their divorce rates are lower and their satisfaction with their marriages is higher. " does not surprise me, as those are the ones where the woman most likely has met the ideal of a "soulmate" and a financially stable partner.
" But as the incentives continue to shift, monogamous expectations dwindle, and imbalanced ratios continue to influence the dating pool for the educated, we may see fewer such couplings." Indeed.
Great rework of a classic article. As a student of human nature, do you think it's inevitable that the highest status men will always be polyamorous? I think of the classic Chris Rock "a man is exactly as faithful as his options" bit. Most of my friends are happily married, but we have one buddy who has always been the best with girls, who has never settled down and continues to date around. The rest of us joke that our marriages only work because we have less game and don't have as many tempting options as him.
You gotta wonder. I feel critical of famous actors, musicians, etc., who commit adultery, but don't know what it might be like to feel that temptation. Though I think if you are smart enough to realize you want a genuine intimate marriage you just have to commit yourself, nearly as an act of faith, not to cheat on your spouse no matter what the temptation, that that is not the kind of person you will be.
Sex ratios are a key driver of human history, mostly expressed in wars. War itself is a product of sex difference and ratio. Historians at conferences centuries hence will conclude pornography altered human males in profoundly negative ways, especially for women.
1. This is "fortunately" just a tiny problem that exacerbates a much bigger problem - the dating market place. I don't know why researchers don't do this more often but under almost any circumstance, an average girl will get hundreds of likes on an dating app vs. the average guy will get about 5-10 if he's lucky. Therefore most women, whether educated or not, already by standard choose men way outside of their league and that includes higher education. Thus this isn't a crisis at all in that sense and it makes sense that the top of the stack women find it even harder because if you already go to Yale and want to shoot for outside your league I guess you can only date Ivy league PhDs.
2. Hook up culture can only be propagated by the sex that decides the dating dynamics and which in turn designates the mating strategies. Using a 10 point scale for argument's sake, if most 5/10 only wants to date 7/10 men and up and 9/10 women only want to date 10s then they'd have to meet the demands of those men since they're the rare commodity. And what do those men want? Well I'll let you figure out that huge mystery. From this view, can we really say women are "pressured" into sex? I don't think so, rather they willingly participate in hook-up culture and its propagation to secure a mate of a much higher caliber.
Not sure what percent of the dating population are in the trades with degrees and eductation therein but you failed to mention this sector of the dating game. Why not.
The linked article describes West End Caleb as a "furniture designer." I assumed that to mean a degree in art design or a similar degree. Thank you for clarifying!
Yeah I would be curious to learn more about women's preferences when you compare education vs earnings. He does mention that they also like men who earn more than them, but how would they evaluate a higher earning male vs one with a high level of education who isn't earning more. That'd be highly variable obviously because the higher educated one may just be at a point where his earnings haven't taken off yet. But maybe not. Plenty of people with Masters degrees and PHD's out there earning less than plumbers and electricians.
I note that in mixed education couplings in which the woman has more education, women have an especially strong preference for men who earn more than themselves.
For what it's worth, income and intelligence have opposite effects on fertility for men: Income correlates with more children for men, while intelligence correlates with fewer children.
my hypothesis is that there is a mediating factor at work here.
that is the need for women to ideally admire, and at the very least respect, their partner. Psychological research on break ups show contempt is the marriage killer. When a woman loses respect for a man, the marriage is dead.
And for a woman to at least respect if not admire a man, he has to be at least equal, if not superior in some important way.
So either superior education or superior earnings might work.
I have also read research that says if a woman makes more money than a man, she can justify her respect or admiration if she can tell herself that he is doing something more important, for example, he is a doctor saving lives. She is just in business, making more money…
Deep need for the men to be respected, too. I've heard it said, and I believe it's true, that men need to be respected by their partner more than they need to be loved. I think that many less-educated men steer clear of highly-educated women because they know that at some point, she and/or her highly-educated social circle might well disrespect him, sneer at his work, dismiss his opinions. Why sign up to be on the receiving end of that kind of contempt?
well, I agree that respect is a huge issue in male-female relationships, and the emphasis on money and status misses that emotional point.
And yes, it is hard for a more educated woman to respect a less educated man, unless he has some other redeeming qualities.
If a woman ditches a man when his financial status plummets, for example, this msy have more to do with the fact that she loses respect for him if he can't get it together, rather than because her own standard of living has plummeted.
she may give him support as long as she feels he is working hard and will get back on his feet, but often the men will go into a depression, become lethargic and not try anymore, spend their days watching TV or playing video games, etc. while doing nothing around the house while she is supporting him, and that is when she loses respect for him and the relationship is over.
it should go without saying at all of these are generalizations, and do not apply to everyone. There always have been and always will be social climbers, status seekers, golddiggers, etc..
also, the research reports so far make no distinction between elite women who were born into already elite families where the pressure is high for them to continue belonging to that elite, and the first generation college going kids whose parents pressured them to get a college degree to get a good footing in the middle class .
"And yes, it is hard for a more educated woman to respect a less educated man, unless he has some other redeeming qualities."
But... we (yes, I include myself) tend to be highly selective about which specific redeeming qualities qualify. There are millions of less-educated, lower-earning men "out there" who possess wonderful qualities: humour, kindness, generosity, ability to build things with their hands, speak multiple languages, shear sheep, etc. And we would never so much as glance at them.
On the flip side of less-educated men not wanting to subject themselves to potential disdain, is more-educated women not wanting to subject themselves to potential resentment. I know too many real-life stories of the lower-earning man coming to deeply-resent his higher-earning wife. One left her for the nanny, not because the wife was rubbing her education and accomplishments in his face or even because the nanny was younger and cuter, but because he felt like "more of a man" when with someone poorer and less educated than himself. Another guy kept using the family savings (earned almost exclusively by the wife) to financially support his hair-brained business schemes and when -- after losing many tens of thousands of dollars -- she kindly but firmly said, "enough," he felt emasculated and hated her for "not believing in him".
You tell this story, which I've witnessed again in real life, "and that is when she loses respect for him and the relationship is over." I agree and add that not only does the wife lose respect for the partner who just withdraws and does little to help around the house, but also he resents her: for her ability to pay the bills, for her desire for him to get back on his feet, for her not sufficiently "needing him." He resents. She loses respect. He falls out of love. Tragedy ensues.
The trades pay much better than other fields (e.g., journalism, teaching), but are considered low-status by our educated class. I've been at universities for over 25 years and I have known of literally one woman with an advanced degree who married a man without a college degree (I don't mean the "I quit Harvard and now I'm a billionaire" types, I mean someone on a normal non-college track).
I suspect there might be a path out of this dynamic for men who frame their role as "business owner" if they run a small plumbing, contracting, HVAC, etc. company. But so much of our class consciousness uses college degree as a minimum expected.
My brother is one of those rare tradesmen engaged to someone with a masters. Her family, at every gathering with alcohol, always express their shock she ended up with a "blue collar man". Maybe I am a bit too class conscious, but it is a minor miracle I haven't smacked someone yet.
Yeah I can't stand people like that. Part of a general disdain for people of the left. They have this general attitude that they're these great people due to having all the right beliefs, and then they use that to justify looking down on everyone.
The brilliant sociologist/journalist Vance Packard wrote many books about societal trends and "The Status Seekers" describes the early 20th century and later class separation and the climb for status my grandparents and parents' generations experienced. I understand them much better now, but it's depressing to see people still quibbling over this stuff.
This supports my comments about what a mistake it is to assume women's choices are made as DNA, hormone-driven individuals rather than because of strong family and social influences.
Your brother's fiancé doesn't just have advanced degree, but she is also smart, and college and smart are not necessarily exclusive of each other, but also not 2 words that automatically go together.
Yeah I don't get it at all but I'm a guy. To me it's like I'd be happy to work as a bagger at a grocery store if it earned me more money. But status matters to people. I'd just take the money and be happy. Obviously doesn't work that way tho most of the time. Plumber or electrician may not have status like that but they aren't easy jobs either.
i'm a woman and I don't understand why this is understood by men as being about status.  Projection because it is men who are obsessed with status?
 I think for women it is about finding a soulmate, someone they can have interesting conversations with.
Educated women want partners who are intellectual equals, not because they are high status, but because they are someone they can have intelligent conversations with that they cannot have with uneducated men.
Educated women tend to be interesting in the arts, read a lot, want a partner that they can go to museums with, watch art films with, discuss politics with, etc.,  with whom to socialize with an equally interesting group of friends,  discuss the interesting issues that come up in their jobs, etc..
A partner who is a plumber, Electrician, small, retail business, owner, etc,  who comes home after a day of manual labor, and who does not have a social network of interesting intellectual friends, is not appealing, because their is little chance of being able to have that kind of life with them.
Why then is there so much emphasis on the need for equal representation in “high status” occupations? Why not for sanitation workers or oilfield workers?
Women don't want jobs in plumbing or sanitation or oil fields no matter how well-paying they are. Because it isn't about the money.
What they want is a crack at the really interesting jobs, which just happen to be "high status". The really high status jobs tend to be the more intellectual ones.
 Law, finance, politics, medicine, academia, nonprofits, journalism and media, etc. they are glamorous because they are intellectually interesting and not just manual.
and income may, in fact be a marker for intelligence rather than status.
Unless a man inherited wealth, if he earned it, even if he isn't educated, that generally indicates he is smart and aware, which is what educated women are looking for.
Both men and women seek status, and women traditionally attained that status through their husband's status where men attained that status through their work and through the attractiveness of the woman on their arm. It takes brains to be a good plumber, electrician, small business owner, etc. I've met plenty of the above who read and can have interesting conversations, and I've also met plenty of the so-called "educated" that were as dumb as a sack of rocks. If one thinks of status as the ability to survive, to feed, clothe and house oneself and the family, that shifts according to time and conditions. I will assume a man with a college degree in the first 80 years of the 20th century generally had more upward mobility and resources compared to one who was in the skilled trades. But I believe that is now reversing course as college degrees come loaded with debt and, depending on degree field, not automatically offering good job/income prospects. A woman who can cook well and clean on a budget and provide a good early education to the children is going to be more attractive than one who spends the family budget, puts the kids in front of the tube, and makes frozen dinners (or McDonalds).
My point is that usually (not always, obviously) women with higher education, or looking for a “soulmate“, i.e. someone they can relate to as equals on an intellectual and emotional level, Material resources not being as much of an issue for them as they have their own Careers and are financially independent.
They are looking for someone with similar tastes, values, and interest interests. E.g., going to museums, art exhibitions, cultural events, art films, fine dining, History and culture oriented foreign travel , Educated discussions about politics, foreign affairs, history, psychology, social issues, etc., rather than football games, car racing, Blockbuster car chase movies, barbecue/steakhouses/hamburger joints, all inclusive, beach, vacations, etc.
Men who go into skilled trades, usually do so, because they hated school and intellectual discussions, and working with their hands rather than with ideas.
Of course, there are exceptions, and those are usually the ones even educated women might be interested in, but they are rare.
Imagine that you are an educated and conventionally successful/attractive 28-year old woman who is in a blossoming relationship with a 30-year old man to whom you feel real attraction and connection. He is highly intellectually curious and reads widely. You think he may be "the one." Imagine how you feel as you describe this man to (1) your close friends, (2) your family, (3) a new acquaintance you met at an independent film festival. How soon you would bring up his education/profession and how you would feel doing so if your boyfriend was:
1) Ivy-league educated, advanced degree, great career/income trajectory (e.g., junior partner, VP, asst prof at top univ, owns successful business)
2) Flagship state school educated, bachelor's degree, good but not exciting career trajectory (e.g., insurance adjuster, sales or IT for large corp)
3) Dropped out of college at 19 to work at a friend's startup, now at a large corp working in IT. Talks about starting his own business someday.
4) Ivy-league educated with degree in English Lit, can't seem to hold down a steady job, currently stocking shelves at Barnes & Noble
For number 4, would you possibly try to frame his prospects in a higher status way e.g., "he's working on a novel"?
I think that being a bagger in a grocery store isn't terribly taxing, either mentally or physically. So if the guy in question had that job and it paid very well, he could do that 8 hours/ day then have plenty of money and energy to pursue the things he finds fascinating and enriching.
And let's be honest, how many "interesting" jobs are really that interesting, enriching at the end of the day? Friend's dad was an eye surgeon: completely changed his patients' lives, required high education and intelligence, not at all mind-numbing work. But he worked crazy hours, returned home emotionally depleted, had little time or energy outside work for anything but exercise, sleep and keeping up with reading his medical journals. He admitted that at some point, his job was just doing a variation of the same thing over and over again. Friend's mum did 98% of the child-rearing, dad paid 100% of the bills, certainly not a lot of going to museums or discussing books together. My lawyer friend spends long hours poring over real estate contracts day in day out. Maybe always learning and intellectually challenged, but also dry and and some point boring and repetitive. He spends most of his time at work and when he's at home, wants to decompress and disconnect by watching sports with a beer. Not a lot of antiquing or reading the New York Times together with his wife.
Women end a marriage when they are dissatisfied with the quality of their relationship, and often the man is blindsided as he had no idea. Because men and women look for different things in a relationship. Women want an emotional and intellectual connection.
I'm not sure what men want, a warm, indulgent mother, a good mother to their children, and a good sexual partner seems to be it.
and I'll bet the wives are not terribly happy with those marriages, maybe contemplating divorce… Or judt staying because the alternatives aren't good.
There's a difference between what a still young and starry-eyed woman is looking for in a partner, and what a more realistic, jaded one is ready to settle for.
What was being discussed? Here is what young women are looking for in a partner I see it isn't status, per se, it is the kind of life they imagine having with a partner
And often what a man will do to woo a woman before marriage is different from the life they have afterwards when she is won and he feels he can rest on his laurels and relax. and that is when women start to complain about how he takes her for granted now, and get dissatisfied with the marriage.
What's wrong with that? I guess your point is they should be focused on changing and shaping the world for the better? If so, that's a fair point. I guess the way I grew up and what i've seen discourages me from even thinking that is possible. Going through college and seeing how pathetic it really is. The way that human beings are pack animals, following along so easily with the latest trend, ostracizing those that others do, etc. I find it gross, the social ways of human beings. Maybe it's just my experience, who knows.
no, my point is not that they should be focussed on changing and shaping the world for the better.
My point is that spending one's life bagging things in a supermarket is a pretty poor way to spend the little time we have on this earth. it would be boring, mind numbing.
educated women tend to want to be in jobs where they are constantly learning and being intellectually challenged.
but I don't think you really meant that anyway, you wouldn't be on this forum if you meant it. obviously, you like engaging in intellectual discussions.
and I think so do intellectual educated women, but they want to do that with their life partner as well as their friends, and not just on social media.
Whereas I don't think that is what men are looking for in their female partners.
True story: a boyfriend from my long-ago youth has a Masters in Medieval History. He is well-read, thoughtful, funny and articulate. He is now in his mid-40s and a waiter. When not working he goes to museums, writes poetry, takes his sons to the park, cooks for the whole family. He tried to find a well-read, educated woman to marry but none wanted to settle down with a waiter, so instead he wed a hearty working class lass who is awe of his intellect and sees serving tables as good a way as any to pay the bills. No idea if they're happy but it's certainly an interesting to see these different couplings.
It was a thought experiment, take it easy. But it isn't that dumb in reality; sometimes you gotta do things you don't like to get by. If the money is good then you can save it up and do it long enough until you can afford to do something better.
of course of course if that would be only temporary or your only choice that is different, but that is not what you said. You basically said the money was all that mattered and the quality of the job did not.
Women do not dream of marrying a rich, buffoon and living parallel, lives, where they never see him and spend their life pursuing their at interest separately with their girlfriends.
but many do end up settling for that and are miserable .
I wonder how much of the problem is not that women have more educational credentials, it's that they haven't really learned much. College is ground zero for a lot of what's wrong with America.
In the narrow case, one can talk about gender studies programs that don't teach about the biology of sex, but in the broader case, one can talk about people who have graduate degrees but have never been required to learn anything about history, civics, finance, physics, ethics, etc. etc.
Speaking as someone who is back in school for yet another graduate degree, I can say that possessing this degree is not something that I would consider a positive in evaluating someone's merit as a potential partner.
The only optimistic way I see this going is for women to start getting, for lack of a bette word, trophy husbands and look for good fathers. There is one stay at home Dad at the local public well off elementary on the PTA and the family definitely has status. In my circle they are rare enough I've only met two, but a stay at home dad seems like the ultimate status item. If that belief gets more normalised I think a lot of women will be happier.
I wonder how this dynamic could work in Christian colleges where there are larger incentives for long term commitment relationship from both males and females. Plus religiosity also plays an important role in your dating partner. Do you have any insight on this?
Or, say, the East Indian community where there is a huge emphasis on education, encouraging one's children to marry within the community, expecting marriage between socio-economic equals, etc.
I went to a prestigious university, and when we were first dating, my now-husband told me point blank “I don’t have a degree, and you need to decide if that’s important to you. I’m not talking about it anymore.”
I found it pretty jarring at the time, but it was the first time I had to actually confront why I’d assumed that I could only marry someone with an education similar to mine. Ultimately all of those reasons were pretty shallow, and I was able to move past them.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been willing to confront me like that. I’d probably still be unmarried and constantly complaining about how there are no good men out there.
This is a wicked problem when viewed from a societal scale. So much of one's view of the opposite sex can be driven by emotional hurt and personal resentment toward a specific one or a few individuals. I assume that when a young woman is repeatedly used for sex and discarded that her perception of "what men are like" will inevitably make it hard for her to trust/bond. (With a similar dynamic for young men who have a handful of bad experiences with women.)
I don't believe it was addressed in this piece, but the general desire of women for men the same age or older is also relevant. I've read elsewhere that the supply and demand dynamics on Tinder and other dating sites become so unbalanced for moderately successful men (even nerdy types) in their early-30s that there are dozens of women trying to "catch" them. This makes it even less likely that they settle down just when their options are increasing. And attractive, smart, caring women who want to get married arrive at age 30 and find that the 40:60 ratio from college has turned into 10:90 when an "eligible" man means 30+, still single, educated, high salary, tall, etc.
Perhaps there is a way out as it becomes apparent that dating in the age of Tinder/social media has made both women and men miserable. I can see opting out of Tinder, etc. becoming high status for young women. It's hard for me to imagine it becoming high status for most young men, except for those in serious relationship with a woman who is seen as a great "catch" by other men.
How many men were supported by their wives while they got their advanced degrees? That seems to be more common, or at least was in the not so distant past, don't know about now.
"Interestingly, women at colleges where women are more numerous trust men less."
In my opinion this happens when women are too numerous. Many are not considered as dating material, grow angry and distrustful of men (because it can't possibly be them-accoording to their "sisters." Voila! You now have a man hating society filled with feminists and men who agree with them.
In the study by the U of British Columbia sociologist finding women marred to less educated men who earn more... I wonder how many of those women were able to gain more education *because* they married men who could afford to support them in that endeavor.
BTW, those guys who figured out how to get a research grant involving looking at lots of sexy selfies are clever lads. Best of both worlds.
“people may be less willing to work at any given wage” this is a concept I struggle to wrap my mind around.
The participants in the study are young, and you note their feelings may change in middle age. They’re living with relatives now, surely there will come a point where they must work to survive? Can this entire group sponge off their families for their entire lives? are we at a point in society where people don’t need to work to get their basic needs met? My understanding is that welfare programs provide barley enough for substance, so how is it there’s is this giant group of ppl who don’t have to work to survive?
As an outsider the dating world seems like a bleak hell scape. I have some super woke family and they show me ‘offensive’ wrongthink men on dating apps have put in their text and email exchanges which leads to them ending conversations with men and dating no one. I often think after reading the exchanges - that is not offensive and It’s not surprising these women are single. It’s like they’re looking for any excuse to eviscerate men and say there is no one out there. To be clear everyone should have standards but what I’m seeing is ridiculous.
Also the rise in polyamory I would be interested in reading more articles on it and how this trend is impacting men and women.
When I was in college (last millennium), I recognized that computer games were giving me a false sense of accomplishment so I stopped playing during the semester. Since then, games have become much more sophisticated in their psychology and manipulation. I'm not really surpised that (especially low-status) young men are taken in by these psychological/emotional rewards and even status in online communities when those things are much more difficult to achieve IRL.
The other day a college kid told me he stopped playing video games in high school because he realized the effort he was putting in to "level up" in games could instead be used to level up in real life.
Rob I am going to talk about this with my teenage son when I see him today. Thank you for these brilliant insights.
I used to think welfare programs encompassed just food stamps (EBT), section 8 housing and child support payments. Now I occasionally hear of other programs out there I had no idea existed. Those unwilling to find a job and/or mate to support their lifestyle and/or children find every dollar out there. They are pros at this stuff and while they won't get rich, they do find ways to live a decent life as a government dependent.
I think you're exaggerating. How many people do you know who live well on government subsistence . . . besides military contractors?
Very thought provoking. I used to be in the video game + porn + arrogantly entitled crowd, and it was not for me.
I recently went to a concert and met a 25-year-old woman who was there with a 38-year-old man. He left to go buy drinks, and she immediately told everyone around her that she met him at an NFL house party and agreed to go out with him because he owned a vintage truck that to her, signaled his wealth. “I was totally wrong about him,” she said, “but now we’ve been dating a couple of months so I don’t know.”
During the evening the guy got totally smashed, went into the women’s bathroom to look for her, and they ended up getting in a shouting match at the concert and he left. She went after him, but all of us knew how much she loved the band and we convinced her to stay for the set, and hopefully convinced her to break-up.
I think women look for financial security above all else in selecting a partner. Education is an obvious indicator that a man will most likely be financially well-off, but for those who exist outside the realm of academia, a vintage truck may work as a substitute.
That was not where I thought this was story was going lol. Thought it as going to be about education being an indicator of even temperament and low aggression (in addition to financial stability).
Haha! That’s true too, but she wouldn’t have given him a shot in hell if it weren’t for that truck.
Of course, some women are golddiggers. but most are not, and are looking for a soulmate, in my opinion.
 A man with a vintage truck might be iinterpreted by some women as indicating he has some appreciation for the finer things in life, other than pick up trucks, football games, etc..
many college educated women end up in toxic relationships with irresponsible men who can't keep a job, penniless artists or musicians, drug addicts, etc. Because they naïvely hope that being patient and supportive those men will shape up and become good partners… and eventually become single mothers after the relationship has broken down.
It is the more realistic women through make sure that doesn't happen despite their inclinations.

You’re absolutely right, anyone with intentions to be with someone just for money will never be happy.
What I’ve seen with women I know is they look for a mate who will provide for them. This doesn’t mean yachts and luxury brands, it just means women are more attracted to men who will provide stability, especially financial stability.
well, I haven't seen that in the women around me. What I see repeatedly, and this is in a highly educated middle-class population is women pairing up with men of lower socioeconomic status, or a more or less equal one.
For some it ends badly and they end up single mothers. For others it works fine the partners share values and interests, and that is what makes it work.
See my freestanding comment about hypergamy and hormones.
Societies across time and space have been obsessed with controlling teenage girls's sexuality and keeping them under strict surveillance because those silly immature girls are likely to run off with some ne-er-do-well rather than the older well-off man their parents want to marry them off to...
The goal in the parenting game is grandchildren. That’s how you know you’ve scored. Great-grandchildren are extra points.
Melanie Trump
Well, gee, a vintage truck! Or maybe a guy who has one of those cars w/cool undercarriage lighting!
Dave Chappelle has a skit: "If it wasn't for the need to impress women, men would be content living in a cardboard box. And why do you think they buy fancy cars? Men drive by a women and then . . . 'Caught you bitch!' "
For all those men interpreting this as women having some deep biological urge to be hypergamous, i.e. mate with men who have high status/earnings, please explain the following facts.
Historically and cross-culturally, women never live as free individuals, they live imbedded in families.
In patriarchal societies, those families tend to be obsessed with controlling the sexuality of their daughters because it is dangerous to the family's material interests.
Once the girl reaches puberty, she is kept under close surveillance, often with chaperones or in purdah, cannot go out alone, etc.
Why? Because the silly girl is likely to be the victim of her hormones and run off with some young ne'er-do-well rather than the sensible choice, i.e. the older, well-off man their parents chose for her and who will give her and her family financial security and social status.
And all societies have stories about the immature, rebellious, boy-crazy teenager who "followed her heart" ran off with that young guy against her parents' wishes and was either abandoned or lived a poor life with him.
And keeps trying to impress on young girls the importance of being obedient and responsible and sensible, i.e. following her head rather than her heart, because marriage isn't about "love".
Most girls do end up following their parents' and society's wishes, and have those arranged marriages, and, we are told, that "works well" and she "comes to love him" eventually.
In more modern and individualistic cultures without arranged marriages, those pressures still exist in a different form.
It is only very recently that women have had the financial independence to be able to consider "following their hearts" rather than their heads in love and marriage, and that complicates things.
but there is still often a conflict between head and heart, the ideal being to "have your cake and eat it too", i.e. a soulmate who is also a financially responsible partner.
I read some asinine comments from feminists on a social media website who were announcing that they weren't worried that boys were now doing poorly in school and succumbing to unsuccessful ways of living, because the feminists figured it was a zero-sum game and boys failing was a win for girls.
I know we relics from the past don't know what we are talking about, but we all grew up assuming that it was primarily the man's job to provide, a man who didn't do so (unless genuine circumstance prevented that) was a failure. Not dissing partnerships in the present day where the woman is the primary breadwinner and the man takes care of the kids, by the way, because if both partners are happy, that's all good.
ctnd-
Thinking about this some more, the gene responsible for whatever "hypergamy" is seen, may be more the one that makes women more agreeable, "sensible" and likely to listen to their families and society's realistic advice, rather than their sexual hormones which are likely to lead them into less materially advantageous relationships.
But the conclusion that "among romantic pairings in which both individuals are educated, they tend to be happier. Their divorce rates are lower and their satisfaction with their marriages is higher. " does not surprise me, as those are the ones where the woman most likely has met the ideal of a "soulmate" and a financially stable partner.
" But as the incentives continue to shift, monogamous expectations dwindle, and imbalanced ratios continue to influence the dating pool for the educated, we may see fewer such couplings." Indeed.
I'm going to assume based on your comments here that you're single?
Great rework of a classic article. As a student of human nature, do you think it's inevitable that the highest status men will always be polyamorous? I think of the classic Chris Rock "a man is exactly as faithful as his options" bit. Most of my friends are happily married, but we have one buddy who has always been the best with girls, who has never settled down and continues to date around. The rest of us joke that our marriages only work because we have less game and don't have as many tempting options as him.
You gotta wonder. I feel critical of famous actors, musicians, etc., who commit adultery, but don't know what it might be like to feel that temptation. Though I think if you are smart enough to realize you want a genuine intimate marriage you just have to commit yourself, nearly as an act of faith, not to cheat on your spouse no matter what the temptation, that that is not the kind of person you will be.
Old feminist here. From my experience as a young adult in the 70's and 80's, the buddy and his "options" are not the pick of the litter.
Sex ratios are a key driver of human history, mostly expressed in wars. War itself is a product of sex difference and ratio. Historians at conferences centuries hence will conclude pornography altered human males in profoundly negative ways, especially for women.
2 points:
1. This is "fortunately" just a tiny problem that exacerbates a much bigger problem - the dating market place. I don't know why researchers don't do this more often but under almost any circumstance, an average girl will get hundreds of likes on an dating app vs. the average guy will get about 5-10 if he's lucky. Therefore most women, whether educated or not, already by standard choose men way outside of their league and that includes higher education. Thus this isn't a crisis at all in that sense and it makes sense that the top of the stack women find it even harder because if you already go to Yale and want to shoot for outside your league I guess you can only date Ivy league PhDs.
2. Hook up culture can only be propagated by the sex that decides the dating dynamics and which in turn designates the mating strategies. Using a 10 point scale for argument's sake, if most 5/10 only wants to date 7/10 men and up and 9/10 women only want to date 10s then they'd have to meet the demands of those men since they're the rare commodity. And what do those men want? Well I'll let you figure out that huge mystery. From this view, can we really say women are "pressured" into sex? I don't think so, rather they willingly participate in hook-up culture and its propagation to secure a mate of a much higher caliber.
Not sure what percent of the dating population are in the trades with degrees and eductation therein but you failed to mention this sector of the dating game. Why not.
I mentioned West Elm Caleb -- a furniture woodworker who apparently slept with half the app-using women in NYC.
The linked article describes West End Caleb as a "furniture designer." I assumed that to mean a degree in art design or a similar degree. Thank you for clarifying!
Yeah I would be curious to learn more about women's preferences when you compare education vs earnings. He does mention that they also like men who earn more than them, but how would they evaluate a higher earning male vs one with a high level of education who isn't earning more. That'd be highly variable obviously because the higher educated one may just be at a point where his earnings haven't taken off yet. But maybe not. Plenty of people with Masters degrees and PHD's out there earning less than plumbers and electricians.
I note that in mixed education couplings in which the woman has more education, women have an especially strong preference for men who earn more than themselves.
For what it's worth, income and intelligence have opposite effects on fertility for men: Income correlates with more children for men, while intelligence correlates with fewer children.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513805000619?via%3Dihub
my hypothesis is that there is a mediating factor at work here.
that is the need for women to ideally admire, and at the very least respect, their partner. Psychological research on break ups show contempt is the marriage killer. When a woman loses respect for a man, the marriage is dead.
And for a woman to at least respect if not admire a man, he has to be at least equal, if not superior in some important way.
So either superior education or superior earnings might work.
I have also read research that says if a woman makes more money than a man, she can justify her respect or admiration if she can tell herself that he is doing something more important, for example, he is a doctor saving lives. She is just in business, making more money…
Deep need for the men to be respected, too. I've heard it said, and I believe it's true, that men need to be respected by their partner more than they need to be loved. I think that many less-educated men steer clear of highly-educated women because they know that at some point, she and/or her highly-educated social circle might well disrespect him, sneer at his work, dismiss his opinions. Why sign up to be on the receiving end of that kind of contempt?
well, I agree that respect is a huge issue in male-female relationships, and the emphasis on money and status misses that emotional point.
And yes, it is hard for a more educated woman to respect a less educated man, unless he has some other redeeming qualities.
If a woman ditches a man when his financial status plummets, for example, this msy have more to do with the fact that she loses respect for him if he can't get it together, rather than because her own standard of living has plummeted.
she may give him support as long as she feels he is working hard and will get back on his feet, but often the men will go into a depression, become lethargic and not try anymore, spend their days watching TV or playing video games, etc. while doing nothing around the house while she is supporting him, and that is when she loses respect for him and the relationship is over.
it should go without saying at all of these are generalizations, and do not apply to everyone. There always have been and always will be social climbers, status seekers, golddiggers, etc..
also, the research reports so far make no distinction between elite women who were born into already elite families where the pressure is high for them to continue belonging to that elite, and the first generation college going kids whose parents pressured them to get a college degree to get a good footing in the middle class .
"And yes, it is hard for a more educated woman to respect a less educated man, unless he has some other redeeming qualities."
But... we (yes, I include myself) tend to be highly selective about which specific redeeming qualities qualify. There are millions of less-educated, lower-earning men "out there" who possess wonderful qualities: humour, kindness, generosity, ability to build things with their hands, speak multiple languages, shear sheep, etc. And we would never so much as glance at them.
On the flip side of less-educated men not wanting to subject themselves to potential disdain, is more-educated women not wanting to subject themselves to potential resentment. I know too many real-life stories of the lower-earning man coming to deeply-resent his higher-earning wife. One left her for the nanny, not because the wife was rubbing her education and accomplishments in his face or even because the nanny was younger and cuter, but because he felt like "more of a man" when with someone poorer and less educated than himself. Another guy kept using the family savings (earned almost exclusively by the wife) to financially support his hair-brained business schemes and when -- after losing many tens of thousands of dollars -- she kindly but firmly said, "enough," he felt emasculated and hated her for "not believing in him".
You tell this story, which I've witnessed again in real life, "and that is when she loses respect for him and the relationship is over." I agree and add that not only does the wife lose respect for the partner who just withdraws and does little to help around the house, but also he resents her: for her ability to pay the bills, for her desire for him to get back on his feet, for her not sufficiently "needing him." He resents. She loses respect. He falls out of love. Tragedy ensues.
Finally: do you remember this study? Would love to read Rob's take on this. https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/married-mothers-who-earn-more-than-their-husbands-take-on-an-even-greater-share-of-housework/
The trades pay much better than other fields (e.g., journalism, teaching), but are considered low-status by our educated class. I've been at universities for over 25 years and I have known of literally one woman with an advanced degree who married a man without a college degree (I don't mean the "I quit Harvard and now I'm a billionaire" types, I mean someone on a normal non-college track).
I suspect there might be a path out of this dynamic for men who frame their role as "business owner" if they run a small plumbing, contracting, HVAC, etc. company. But so much of our class consciousness uses college degree as a minimum expected.
My brother is one of those rare tradesmen engaged to someone with a masters. Her family, at every gathering with alcohol, always express their shock she ended up with a "blue collar man". Maybe I am a bit too class conscious, but it is a minor miracle I haven't smacked someone yet.
Yeah I can't stand people like that. Part of a general disdain for people of the left. They have this general attitude that they're these great people due to having all the right beliefs, and then they use that to justify looking down on everyone.
The brilliant sociologist/journalist Vance Packard wrote many books about societal trends and "The Status Seekers" describes the early 20th century and later class separation and the climb for status my grandparents and parents' generations experienced. I understand them much better now, but it's depressing to see people still quibbling over this stuff.
This supports my comments about what a mistake it is to assume women's choices are made as DNA, hormone-driven individuals rather than because of strong family and social influences.
Your brother's fiancé doesn't just have advanced degree, but she is also smart, and college and smart are not necessarily exclusive of each other, but also not 2 words that automatically go together.
Yeah I don't get it at all but I'm a guy. To me it's like I'd be happy to work as a bagger at a grocery store if it earned me more money. But status matters to people. I'd just take the money and be happy. Obviously doesn't work that way tho most of the time. Plumber or electrician may not have status like that but they aren't easy jobs either.
i'm a woman and I don't understand why this is understood by men as being about status.  Projection because it is men who are obsessed with status?
 I think for women it is about finding a soulmate, someone they can have interesting conversations with.
Educated women want partners who are intellectual equals, not because they are high status, but because they are someone they can have intelligent conversations with that they cannot have with uneducated men.
Educated women tend to be interesting in the arts, read a lot, want a partner that they can go to museums with, watch art films with, discuss politics with, etc.,  with whom to socialize with an equally interesting group of friends,  discuss the interesting issues that come up in their jobs, etc..
A partner who is a plumber, Electrician, small, retail business, owner, etc,  who comes home after a day of manual labor, and who does not have a social network of interesting intellectual friends, is not appealing, because their is little chance of being able to have that kind of life with them.
Why then is there so much emphasis on the need for equal representation in “high status” occupations? Why not for sanitation workers or oilfield workers?
I think the emphasis on status is misleading.
Women don't want jobs in plumbing or sanitation or oil fields no matter how well-paying they are. Because it isn't about the money.
What they want is a crack at the really interesting jobs, which just happen to be "high status". The really high status jobs tend to be the more intellectual ones.
ctnd-
 Law, finance, politics, medicine, academia, nonprofits, journalism and media, etc. they are glamorous because they are intellectually interesting and not just manual.
ctnd-
and income may, in fact be a marker for intelligence rather than status.
Unless a man inherited wealth, if he earned it, even if he isn't educated, that generally indicates he is smart and aware, which is what educated women are looking for.
ctnd-
A  guy with a degree who still can't manage to be financially comfortable is not  signalling intelligence and awareness.
Both men and women seek status, and women traditionally attained that status through their husband's status where men attained that status through their work and through the attractiveness of the woman on their arm. It takes brains to be a good plumber, electrician, small business owner, etc. I've met plenty of the above who read and can have interesting conversations, and I've also met plenty of the so-called "educated" that were as dumb as a sack of rocks. If one thinks of status as the ability to survive, to feed, clothe and house oneself and the family, that shifts according to time and conditions. I will assume a man with a college degree in the first 80 years of the 20th century generally had more upward mobility and resources compared to one who was in the skilled trades. But I believe that is now reversing course as college degrees come loaded with debt and, depending on degree field, not automatically offering good job/income prospects. A woman who can cook well and clean on a budget and provide a good early education to the children is going to be more attractive than one who spends the family budget, puts the kids in front of the tube, and makes frozen dinners (or McDonalds).
My point is that usually (not always, obviously) women with higher education, or looking for a “soulmate“, i.e. someone they can relate to as equals on an intellectual and emotional level, Material resources not being as much of an issue for them as they have their own Careers and are financially independent.
They are looking for someone with similar tastes, values, and interest interests. E.g., going to museums, art exhibitions, cultural events, art films, fine dining, History and culture oriented foreign travel , Educated discussions about politics, foreign affairs, history, psychology, social issues, etc., rather than football games, car racing, Blockbuster car chase movies, barbecue/steakhouses/hamburger joints, all inclusive, beach, vacations, etc.
Men who go into skilled trades, usually do so, because they hated school and intellectual discussions, and working with their hands rather than with ideas.
Of course, there are exceptions, and those are usually the ones even educated women might be interested in, but they are rare.
Imagine that you are an educated and conventionally successful/attractive 28-year old woman who is in a blossoming relationship with a 30-year old man to whom you feel real attraction and connection. He is highly intellectually curious and reads widely. You think he may be "the one." Imagine how you feel as you describe this man to (1) your close friends, (2) your family, (3) a new acquaintance you met at an independent film festival. How soon you would bring up his education/profession and how you would feel doing so if your boyfriend was:
1) Ivy-league educated, advanced degree, great career/income trajectory (e.g., junior partner, VP, asst prof at top univ, owns successful business)
2) Flagship state school educated, bachelor's degree, good but not exciting career trajectory (e.g., insurance adjuster, sales or IT for large corp)
3) Dropped out of college at 19 to work at a friend's startup, now at a large corp working in IT. Talks about starting his own business someday.
4) Ivy-league educated with degree in English Lit, can't seem to hold down a steady job, currently stocking shelves at Barnes & Noble
For number 4, would you possibly try to frame his prospects in a higher status way e.g., "he's working on a novel"?
Yes.
The fact a man would be happy working as a bagger in a grocery store. If it meant, he made more money says it all.
I think that being a bagger in a grocery store isn't terribly taxing, either mentally or physically. So if the guy in question had that job and it paid very well, he could do that 8 hours/ day then have plenty of money and energy to pursue the things he finds fascinating and enriching.
And let's be honest, how many "interesting" jobs are really that interesting, enriching at the end of the day? Friend's dad was an eye surgeon: completely changed his patients' lives, required high education and intelligence, not at all mind-numbing work. But he worked crazy hours, returned home emotionally depleted, had little time or energy outside work for anything but exercise, sleep and keeping up with reading his medical journals. He admitted that at some point, his job was just doing a variation of the same thing over and over again. Friend's mum did 98% of the child-rearing, dad paid 100% of the bills, certainly not a lot of going to museums or discussing books together. My lawyer friend spends long hours poring over real estate contracts day in day out. Maybe always learning and intellectually challenged, but also dry and and some point boring and repetitive. He spends most of his time at work and when he's at home, wants to decompress and disconnect by watching sports with a beer. Not a lot of antiquing or reading the New York Times together with his wife.
Women end a marriage when they are dissatisfied with the quality of their relationship, and often the man is blindsided as he had no idea. Because men and women look for different things in a relationship. Women want an emotional and intellectual connection.
I'm not sure what men want, a warm, indulgent mother, a good mother to their children, and a good sexual partner seems to be it.
and I'll bet the wives are not terribly happy with those marriages, maybe contemplating divorce… Or judt staying because the alternatives aren't good.
There's a difference between what a still young and starry-eyed woman is looking for in a partner, and what a more realistic, jaded one is ready to settle for.
What was being discussed? Here is what young women are looking for in a partner I see it isn't status, per se, it is the kind of life they imagine having with a partner
And often what a man will do to woo a woman before marriage is different from the life they have afterwards when she is won and he feels he can rest on his laurels and relax. and that is when women start to complain about how he takes her for granted now, and get dissatisfied with the marriage.
What's wrong with that? I guess your point is they should be focused on changing and shaping the world for the better? If so, that's a fair point. I guess the way I grew up and what i've seen discourages me from even thinking that is possible. Going through college and seeing how pathetic it really is. The way that human beings are pack animals, following along so easily with the latest trend, ostracizing those that others do, etc. I find it gross, the social ways of human beings. Maybe it's just my experience, who knows.
no, my point is not that they should be focussed on changing and shaping the world for the better.
My point is that spending one's life bagging things in a supermarket is a pretty poor way to spend the little time we have on this earth. it would be boring, mind numbing.
educated women tend to want to be in jobs where they are constantly learning and being intellectually challenged.
but I don't think you really meant that anyway, you wouldn't be on this forum if you meant it. obviously, you like engaging in intellectual discussions.
and I think so do intellectual educated women, but they want to do that with their life partner as well as their friends, and not just on social media.
Whereas I don't think that is what men are looking for in their female partners.
Darn auto correct!
I don't think that would be true of any educated woman.
and I'm still trying to get my head around someone who would be happy spending his life as a bagger as long as the money was good…
That is a soul destroying way of spending one's life.
That isn't any any educated woman's idea of a good life companion.
True story: a boyfriend from my long-ago youth has a Masters in Medieval History. He is well-read, thoughtful, funny and articulate. He is now in his mid-40s and a waiter. When not working he goes to museums, writes poetry, takes his sons to the park, cooks for the whole family. He tried to find a well-read, educated woman to marry but none wanted to settle down with a waiter, so instead he wed a hearty working class lass who is awe of his intellect and sees serving tables as good a way as any to pay the bills. No idea if they're happy but it's certainly an interesting to see these different couplings.
It was a thought experiment, take it easy. But it isn't that dumb in reality; sometimes you gotta do things you don't like to get by. If the money is good then you can save it up and do it long enough until you can afford to do something better.
of course of course if that would be only temporary or your only choice that is different, but that is not what you said. You basically said the money was all that mattered and the quality of the job did not.
Yeah it depends a lot on the details. But a job is how you get by, and in reality most people aren't able to do what they want to do or would enjoy.
The college educated women are fighting about the few men left in the humanities and social sciences, mostly.
But I guess you are agreeing with me that most men have no interest in those things.
Women do not dream of marrying a rich, buffoon and living parallel, lives, where they never see him and spend their life pursuing their at interest separately with their girlfriends.
but many do end up settling for that and are miserable .
they just aren't any educated woman idea of an intellectual  companion and soulmate.
They may be reasonably smart and be hard workers, but intellectuals? Give me a break.
it is the guys who hated school because they have no intellectual interests who become plumbers and electricians  or go into retail.
I wonder how much of the problem is not that women have more educational credentials, it's that they haven't really learned much. College is ground zero for a lot of what's wrong with America.
In the narrow case, one can talk about gender studies programs that don't teach about the biology of sex, but in the broader case, one can talk about people who have graduate degrees but have never been required to learn anything about history, civics, finance, physics, ethics, etc. etc.
Speaking as someone who is back in school for yet another graduate degree, I can say that possessing this degree is not something that I would consider a positive in evaluating someone's merit as a potential partner.
The corollary is that people with college degrees often have an inflated opinion of themselves.
The only optimistic way I see this going is for women to start getting, for lack of a bette word, trophy husbands and look for good fathers. There is one stay at home Dad at the local public well off elementary on the PTA and the family definitely has status. In my circle they are rare enough I've only met two, but a stay at home dad seems like the ultimate status item. If that belief gets more normalised I think a lot of women will be happier.
I wonder how this dynamic could work in Christian colleges where there are larger incentives for long term commitment relationship from both males and females. Plus religiosity also plays an important role in your dating partner. Do you have any insight on this?
Or, say, the East Indian community where there is a huge emphasis on education, encouraging one's children to marry within the community, expecting marriage between socio-economic equals, etc.