Game Theory Explains the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox | Hacker News Reader

Game Theory Explains the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox

slate.com

42 pointskradic17 comments

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the fact that men readily date women who are significantly younger -- while the same is not particularly common in women. Men have a much larger pool of candidates as they get older (while women had a larger one when they were younger)

Good point. Perhaps that's simply an instance of a more general rule: women, on average, have stricter requirements than men, so they have a smaller pool to choose from.

There may be other preference-related explanations. Perhaps men are more likely than women to opt out of heterosexual relationships (e.g. by being gay or happily single).

Then there are demographic explanations. Our species is not perfectly gender-balanced; there are (slightly) more women than men.

I think the answer is to be found in Darwinian natural selection:

Women are looking for a mate that will be able to give her offspring a good chance of making it into the next generation, thus what she is looking for is someone with abundant resources who will secure her home and future. This is also why old but rich men are attractive to women. Men, on the other hand, are basically looking for someone young that will be able to bear a child, and this ability degrades with age. Which is why men of all ages like young women.

I recently had an additional thought about the attractivity of older men: doesn't it prove quality genes, to some extent? If you are already 50, you obviously haven't died from some disease in your 30ies, like inheritable cancer.

The reason it doesn't work the other way round could be that for men, the quality of the genes of their mates don't matter so much: just get as many children out there as possible, some are bound to be OK (it is not as high an investment as it is for women).

Still puzzling why women can't bear children up to a higher age - forgot why that was. Apparently it is quite unique to humans.

Yes, I think you have identified the main point. The shortage of available men for 30-something women is counterbalanced by all the 18 year old guys who can't get a date because their female peers are hanging out with college students, and so on up the age scale.

Agree. Women in their 20s have guys in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s courting them. When women turn 30 everything changes and suddenly their possibilities shrink, partly because guys in their 30s are chasing younger girls. It is a big shock because suddenly they are not the last coke in the fridge.

Anyone who's actually looked at the math behind this knows that this simplification only works out when an entire gender are strong bidders. Otherwise, the solution set lies somewhere in between the extremes. So the author's simplification makes his claim. Without the simplification, his claim weakens significantly.

All the eligible bachelors are coding of course! I didn't need to read the article to know that.

Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?

I read this sentence several times trying to undo the brain-fuck that it did to me. The internet is awash in balderdash, but when you come across a superbly brazen falsehood like this, your defenses tend to fall away.

Now--what and where are these allegedly existent, even numerous, women? The vast majority of women, at least 99 percent, have some combination of eating disorder [1], television-induced personality necrosis, age beyond or near-beyond the breeding years, "baggage" (children, alcoholism, etc), or straightforward ugliness.

[1] Not anorexia nervosa--the opposite.

I don't think Gimein meant that too seriously. I assumed he was talking from the point of view of women who complain about the lack of eligible men.

Stay your bids, fair maidens, as you were. I give you our next chap, a gentlemen of highest rank:

The vast majority of women, at least 99 percent, have some combination of eating disorder [1], television-induced personality necrosis, age beyond or near-beyond the breeding years, "baggage" (children, alcoholism, etc), or straightforward ugliness.

Oh dear.

It comes down to some women, are so fricking picky. I mean, way to pickier than guys, and unrealsticly so.

One thing the article failed to mention; is that women in their late 20's and early 30s are already past their prime years of reproduction, and usually getting less attractive (example, most miss universe are under 25). So they are becoming less desirable then their mid 20s counterparts, hence it is natural, in a perfect market, that they will have to settle of something less they could get when they were 24-27 (what can be considered prime years for women).

I wonder if it asserts or refutes this claim, couples with similar attributes will get hitched. http://www.jstor.org/stable/view/1831130?seq=3

Gimein's troll-baiting....

The 2000 census shows that the US has more unmarried females than males. However, the Census also divides unmarried people into three groups: never-married, divorced, and widowed. [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t27/tab04.pdf]

Looking at the data, we find that widowed females dwarf males (presumably due to females living 8 years longer on average while the average marriage age delta has been stable at 2-3 years), and that males remarry easier than females (or females don't want to remarry ;).

In the never-married category, males dwarf females. Running the numbers by state, we find the ratio of males to females as:

State/Non-state Never-Married Males to Never-Married Females

District of Columbia 0.96

Maryland 1.04

Delaware 1.06

New York 1.07

Rhode Island 1.07

Massachusetts 1.07

Louisiana 1.08

Mississippi 1.1

Pennsylvania 1.11

Connecticut 1.11

South Carolina 1.13

Alabama 1.13

New Jersey 1.13

Illinois 1.14

Ohio 1.14

New Mexico 1.16

Michigan 1.16

Missouri 1.16

Virginia 1.16

Vermont 1.17

Maine 1.17

New Hampshire 1.18

Georgia 1.18

Indiana 1.19

Tennessee 1.19

Wisconsin 1.19

North Carolina 1.2

Utah 1.2

Minnesota 1.2

Iowa 1.22

Arkansas 1.22

Texas 1.22

Kentucky 1.22

West Virginia 1.23

California 1.24

Nebraska 1.24

Florida 1.24

Kansas 1.26

Oregon 1.26

Washington 1.27

Oklahoma 1.27

South Dakota 1.28

Arizona 1.28

Colorado 1.3

Idaho 1.31

Hawaii 1.33

Wyoming 1.33

Montana 1.33

North Dakota 1.36

Nevada 1.42

Alaska 1.45

The Census does not account for geographic clustering of sexual preferences, so assuming Gimein's observation held up with additional data gathering, he may live in a sexual-preference skewed location and/or Alaska.

leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short,

Short != imperfect. It's not some flaw. I'm perfect the way God made me, and the author can eat my shorts.

You're imperfect the way you and your bloodline naturally evolved! God... PSHHH

Or as the result of poor nutrition as a child (see China).

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