Who marries who | Hacker News Reader

Who marries who

bloomberg.com

20 pointscfarm8 comments

This is fascinating, thanks for sharing.

It's especially interesting that female software developers seem to marry other devs, whether they're gay or straight, but gay male software devs tend to marry fitness workers.

It's interesting, but it doesn't surprise me one bit. It's exactly like what the article posits: that women marry equal or up, and men don't care that much. Obviously, it doesn't matter if the men are gay or straight; in both cases, they're quite likely to marry someone with a much lower-paying career.

Also, the premise that women only want to marry up (or equal) really explains why I see so many women on the dating sites in the DC area with high-powered careers (their positions are frequently shown right on their photo in Tinder), who seem to be perpetually single and whose profiles I see over and over. They're obviously not interested in me because 1) I'm a software engineer: software engineering is not seen as a prestigious career at all in this country, despite the pay, and 2) I don't have an advanced degree; many women are degree snobs and won't date someone who didn't go to an Ivy League or doesn't have a Masters or PhD, even though I likely make as much or maybe more money.

I think it makes quite a bit of sense if you're at all interested in having children and staying home with them for any amount of years to worry about the income of your partner. That description tends to apply more to females than males. Pick your poison.

Personally, I know I've prioritized dating men who are willing to stay home themselves since I don't like the idea of being a stay-at-home mom.

Anyway, just seems rational.

>I think it makes quite a bit of sense if you're at all interested in having children and staying home with them for any amount of years to worry about the income of your partner.

Sure it does, but these days very few women stay home for that long (out of women with well-paying careers). Also, more importantly, there's nothing stopping women with high-paying careers from marrying lesser-earning men and letting them stay at home with the kids, but as these statistics clearly show, women are simply not doing that: they're demanding partners who make at least as much as they do. (And they seem to be failing at finding such partners, and are then just staying single, and frequently (in my observation) going to a sperm clinic and getting artificially inseminated and intentionally becoming single mothers and hiring nannies to raise their kids.)

>Personally, I know I've prioritized dating men who are willing to stay home themselves since I don't like the idea of being a stay-at-home mom.

That's great, but you seem to be a rare exception. Very few women seem to be thinking that rationally, as shown by these statistics.

> That's great, but you seem to be a rare exception. Very few women seem to be thinking that rationally, as shown by these statistics.

There's no causation shown this data. It takes two parties to be in a relationship and you have no reason to assume that it's primarily the woman making that choice.

If you want another anecdote, I've been dumped after disclosing I made more than my partner.

There's really no way to know without doing an extensive survey/study, but from what I've seen personally in the dating market, I think it's more a case of high-status-career women being overly picky than them running into too many men who refuse to date them because they earn too much. I'm sorry, but if you're 35+, you just can't expect Mr. (or Mrs.) Perfect; those people are already taken, and were off the market sometime in their 20s, probably even in college. The statistics here clearly show women rarely earning more than their husbands, and given how liberal people in large cities (where these high-earning women live) are, I refuse to believe, until I see better evidence, that this is just because of male chauvinism. I have personally seen far too many profiles from these women who specifically say they won't (or are hesitant to) date men without an Ivy-League and/or non-graduate degree, for instance. If you're going to be that snobbish and picky, then no wonder you're still single (esp. these days when women outnumber men in universities, 60% vs. 40%). Believe what you want, but your singular anecdote about one experience with one single man vs. my anecdata about many dozens of women posting their requirements right in their public dating profiles makes me believe I'm right. Moreover, your singular anecdote is easily countered with my own: I have no trouble dating a woman who makes more, yet I've never had any luck dating such a woman, even in a city that's infamous for having a surplus of single women. (FWIW, I'm now dating someone with a good job, but she makes less than me. Honestly, I'd prefer if she made more but I don't make it a requirement in any way, that's just how it worked out.) Of course, you can claim there's something deficient about me, or that I'm aiming too high, but similar can be said of you or the guy who dumped you; a single data point just isn't that useful. But seeing common trends on dozens or hundreds of dating profiles, IMO, is much more so.

As for women primarily making the choice, that's true. Go look at OKC's data: women get FAR more unsolicited messages than men, that's a simple fact. The person who has more options has more power.

previous conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11081575

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