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Comment by sol_remmy | Hacker News Reader

I know a bunch of beautiful, accomplished women with great jobs who can't find good men to start a family with. Young mens' failure-to-launch is becoming a big problem....

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I'm going to talk about some gender differences that are true in general, and I could back up with citations if I had the time. But remember everybody is their own special case - things that are true in general for a population don't necessarily describe individuals of that population.

1) Women tend to marry up. An accomplished woman with a great job wants a man with a better job. That shrinks the pool a lot for her! A beautiful woman wants a beautiful man, or is willing to trade some beauty for other qualities like status, money, personality, etc. This shrinks the small pool even further.

2) An accomplished woman is likely in her mid thirties, she's got just a couple years to find someone and start having kids to have that family. A small pool with a tight time-frame.

3) Many of the "good men" in 35-45 age group are already married. That pool just keeps getting smaller.

I mean really she wants a 35-45 year-old hyper-successful man who's still single. Those kinds of men are probably not looking to marry 35 year old women. They're super desirable men and they can date from the pool of more desirable twenty year old women. Seems like a very tough situation to be in.

While I recognise a lot of truth in this, I don't think there's ever been a time when I'd have wanted to date or marry a woman 20 years my junior. I have some lovely friends in that range, but they're socio-culturally so different from me (as a reasonably successful, well-off middle-aged man) that it's hard to see them as partner material.

I think what eloff hits on is a gating problem in the choices that each sex typically makes in eloff's construction of their interactions.

Successful women want to marry someone as or more successful, making their pool smaller. Men don't tend to worry as much about marrying someone as or more successful as them, so as you move up the "success" distribution, women have ever fewer choices, and men even more, causing a lot of mismatching problems for women above [x] percentile.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Successful women in their mid thirties find themselves with nearly no options (because of their own preferences which are deeply rooted in culture and genetics), while the kind of men they are interested in have all the options in the world. It's really unfair - and I think it's not discussed enough that women who focus on their career first often do it at the expense of having a family. It's very hard to get both as woman - and you choose in your early twenties and find yourself locked into that decision. Men don't have the same problem.

I'm not sure what advice I would give to my future daughters, other than make it clear to them that it's a very important choice they'll have to make.

Agreed, it's a bit ridiculous. Twenty years is probably too much (especially for a long term relationship) although I do know men who do that.

I went 9 years my junior and it has mostly been a good thing. Especially where starting a family is concerned it has made it so we're not rushed on that decision and can get our finances in order first.

How would this change if the women were set on being childfree?

I think these beautiful accomplished women you speak of might need to try something different/hit up a new watering hole rather than blame a lack of appropriate salary-man breeding stock, as even this wrongheaded article states that these mystifying jobless millennial men (who are presumably ruining America) total only around 500,000, when the number of millennial men is healthily in the millions.

It's not a failure to launch so much as it is a reasonable choice to refuse a path that is not appealing to them. While I chose to marry and have children I in no way presume that my choice to do so is correct for all; it is entirely reasonable for others to choose differently than I.

Why should the individuals in question follow traditional paths, when there's ample adequate satisfaction and happiness to be found in life paths that carry less personal responsibility and financial burden? If having children and a life-partner does not out weigh the relevant stressors, in their subjective assessment, then I see no reason why they'd choose as I have.

I feel like I’ve heard this line way too many times. What qualifies a “good man” and an “accomplished woman”?

I like how the reason to care about men's failure to launch is the lack of reasonable spousal options for women. Men are people too, independent of their utility to women

Well you know, if perhaps HR reviewed it's practices and didn't make discriminating against men a point of pride, then perhaps there would be less "failure-to-launch".

The laws of supply and demand apply to the marriage market. The most attractive are always in hot demand. Women generally marry up (hypergamy). Successful people pick other successful people. All of these factors shrink the pool.

Define “good men”.

Same definition as it's always had. Either bring in money, do a good job caring for the home & family, or some combination those two.

No one wants a partner, regardless of gender, that doesn't contribute.

By this definition, the example millennial male who is studying to become an EMT is on track to contribute but doesn't qualify as a "good man". Seems a little short-sighted.

if he's not contributing to family life while he's studying then you're right, he's not. He may be aspiring to be a "good partner", but if he's _only_ working on bettering himself that is exactly what most people do not want in a partner.

Also define "failure to launch".

From what I can tell, women who consistently complain they can't find a good man wants a self-made man who's already succeeded, instead of one in the process of acquiring that success.

This is identical to a guy who quits on the third day because he's not the CEO yet, even though his job is in the mail room and no one even knows his name yet.

Want something in life? Work for it. There are no participation prizes in life: this goes for both the traditional male and traditional female roles. Success only sees success, no matter what you choose to do in life.

I know a bunch of single men with nice engineering jobs (mostly aerospace). The notion that there just aren't good people or there on either side just seems silly to me.

Maybe men are smartening up. They don't want to be saddled with a divorce, alimony, child support, or several hundred thousand in college tuition costs down the road.

Both genders. Raising kids is expensive. Student loans are retarding marriages and house purchases.

Good point. I wonder how many people out there look at a $12/hour job and realize they can't afford to live off that after loan payments. Maybe they are holding out for something better, or perhaps are exasperated and given up?

We've all heard that proverb about boat and plane rentals. As the cost of raising kids goes up it gets more and more true.

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