Historically, successful men didn't need great relationship skills. They married a woman for that. She brought those things to the table as part of her contribution and he paid the bills. Division of labor.

Women who are college educated, good looking, etc. do not de facto have awesome relationship skills. In fact, you can sort of bet on the idea that if they put their career first, they have probably given short shrift to such things.

The assumption that women who are educated and have successful careers make "great catches" flips the historical standard that what made a man a great catch was his career (not just for the money, but also for the kind of lifestyle that came with the career -- the social circles you run in, among other things) and in order for this to work, men would need to take over the role of tending the relationship: the cooking, the cleaning, being supportive and a good listener, etc.

And that means women would need to start looking for men who invest in that more than their career. They would need to start marrying down.

In essence, the assumption that a woman is a great catch if she has a serious career only works if men are willing to take over the role of "wife" by the droves and the career women are willing to make that deal. Most women still want men who are their equal or superior in terms of career success and income, as the article makes clear.

This isn't a shortage of men. It is a legitimately hard problem to solve to have two career people hook up and also make the personal life part work. A two career couple with kids and a social life, etc. -- there are only so many hours in the day. So this tends to not work.

I have read many, many articles wondering how to make this work and, for me, I think the answer is "My kids are grown adults and I am hitting menopause, so no more babies for me." That means it gets a lot more realistic for me to have a career and also a man in my life with a real career. When you are looking to have a family and make sure all members of the family are properly cared for, it's wicked hard to also have both parents pursuing a serious career with the pedal to the metal.

So I would say these women are choosing career over private life and the law of large numbers mean some of them will just have that career they put everything into. I get why women make that choice. I get why it is hard to be financially dependent upon a man, etc. I did the homemaker and full time mom thing. I know how hard that is. But when push comes to shove, if you just have other priorities, you simply may not get to this one thing that is lower on your list of priorities. Duh.