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Comment by bradlys | Hacker News Reader

I’d also argue that for young men - unless you’re an absolute unit and breathtakingly handsome… you’re always going to need to make more than your partner for a long term relationship. Being a bartender or taking a lower wage job is a surefire way to only being able to sleep around.

I’ve only met a few women who earn more than their spouse and can actually only think of one off the top of my head. Every other couple has the husband making significantly more even if their ages are exactly the same.

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Yup.

When I met my girlfriend she was really clear that she didn't want to date someone who didn't have a similar level of accomplishment to her. It wasn't about money entirely, but money was a part of it.

She has a master's degree and manages a department of people at a fairly big company.

I only have a bachelor, and I don't manage people, but I earn more than her. So I guess it balances out?

She would never date a barista. Not because there is something wrong with being a barista, but I think because what she was looking for was a partner, and it's hard tp be partners if there is a large "success" imbalance between you.

Men are much more willing to "date down" imo because it's culturally more ingrained into us. Women used to not be able to own much, so the expectation was that men "date down" for a long time! We like to think that's all gone away now but it's still very much ingrained into our culture I think.

Wow, I am sorry your girlfriend has such superficial values.

I don't think that "I want a partner who works as hard as I do to succeed" is superficial.

I think "I want a partner who is at least 6 feet tall" is superficial.

Why is that superficial? Being tall has clear value

Low blow, dude!

Kids are a big consideration whether you know it or not. An ambitious professional has better odds of not making time for that, and unfortunately due to biology and the effects of parental leaves this is quite one-sided still. Getting better lately, but still imbalanced.

Kids are not in the picture whether we wanted to or not.

Really what it boiled down to for her is that she worked very hard to get where she was and if the choice was between dating someone who would be semi-dependent on her versus bring single, she'd have stayed single.

She didn't want to be paying for the majority of the house, the car, the groceries, the bills, etc.

It's just different preferences. Men select on beauty and women select on success.

All of my higher earning men friends are married to similar higher earning (or accomplished) women, or they are single.

Maybe at the very high earning end, some are okay with an extremely attractive woman for the sake of being attractive, but from what I can tell in the engineer/lawyer/doctor/business owner demographic, people generally want someone at a similar achievement level (or at least that can pretend to be).

In my immigrant diaspora, I can see the change between older cousins married off in 90s and early 2000s, and younger ones married in the last decade. The older ones frequently have stay at home moms that never had a career. Almost all the younger couples are dual working professionals, with even men eschewing a partner completely if they cannot land a similar working partner.

As long as she sticks by you if an accident befalls you and your career prospects shift to disability then I have no concerns with your partner's stance here.

Otherwise, "money is a part of it" takes a bit of a weirder tone, ya know? Life happens to people. Health issues are guaranteed to come up. Sometimes it's by chance and that's hardly the time for a life partner to abandon you due to perceived misalignment in values.

Yes, that's a fair point.

However, I think someone is allowed to have certain standards when first looking for a partner, and a different set of standards after a meaningful relationship has developed.

"Success" is a part of it but that usually comes packaged with other things like similar level of education and similar type of things the two find interesting. Income is a good (but far from perfect) indicator of social compatibility.

I think this gets at the crux of the thing I'm talking about.

Some people, compatibility is the most important thing. They want someone they can do everything together with, so they have to have very similar interests and day-to-day wants.

For me and my partner, we both wanted someone who wanted similar long-term things and were working hard to accomplish those things. We had very little activities in common when we started dating. I like videogames and DnD, she has very little interest in either. But we've found other things that we love to do together instead of only just adopting the things we both already liked.

I think “success” is also just code for class - to a large extent.

People I’ve known who mention wanting someone “successful” were often looking for Ivy League, rich family, etc. It often had little to do with accomplishments of their own doing and mostly to do with being from the same socioeconomic class/upbringing.

This is why guys pulling good money in blue collar work aren’t often getting women from educated backgrounds - even if they have all the markers of what success would mean to most people.

It’s classism - typically.

Maybe so, but like the person you're replying to said, there's a lot of other indicators about social compatibility.

For instance my city has a lot of blue collar workers making pretty good money, but as a group they have a terrible reputation. Tons of drug abuse and wasteful spending habits.

If you're looking for a dude to party with and who owns quads and snowmobiles and can afford to live large and wants to live large, you probably could date those guys.

And of course there are probably some that absolutely do not follow that behavior trend.

But if you're looking for a more responsible person who lives a quieter life, you're probably better off avoiding the rig pigs.

Generally, that's just classism though. There are a ton of dudes in that work who are wanting to come home to a family. This doesn't change that the women don't want to be with those guys because what they do isn't considered educated work and isn't considered high status.

I mean - are we really going to ignore how poorly doctors spend their money? (doctors are notorious for living paycheck to paycheck!) What about guys in finance in NYC who waste all their money on hookers and blow? This is such a ridiculous argument.

People who spend in ways that many women don't want to exist everywhere. The way they spend the money is just different.

But if a man wants the same things that some other woman wants and she has a PhD and grew up in a rich family and he's only been working in the trades and is from a poorer background - she's not going to get with him even if he makes good money and has all the normal non-class-based traits that she wants from a partner. It's purely classism. I see this shit all the time. I know a lot of women like that - especially in NYC and SF.

I can think of several. It’s becoming quite common as significantly more women have been getting degrees than men.

Guys with flexible jobs and domestic skills can be very appealing to high income earning women. At one end a friend was doing raft tours and became a cook. A higher pay and status example is a PHD taking care of high end lab equipment married to a high end lawyer. I also know of several cases of women inheriting large sums and windows.

I think it’s fairly common you just rarely know, my grandfather’s second wife was much better off and I had no idea until someone told me.

I would guess that people date mostly "inside" their social bubble (or with a similar social prestige). A broke bartender probably did not go to university etc. and therefore the background is different to the accomplished women with an MBA. There should be studies about it, maybe there's a way to make the conversation more fact based? For example, all relationships formed at work will probably lead to similar backgrounds.

This in itself is a huge problem and addressing it requires some combination of: (i) regulation backed up with investigations and significant fines for violation; (ii) transparency into pay equity; (iii) corporate action, optimally because it’s the right thing, but pessimistically because you can’t ignore the prior two points.

Why is it a huge problem?

Why is it normal or acceptable that men earn more than women? It’s been studied for a long time and there’s evidence [1] of some closure across recent censuses, but we’re far from done.

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/what-is-the-g...

> Why is it normal

It was the norm for generations because women didn't work at all and men were expected to earn all of the money for themselves and their family.

We are not as far removed from those days as people would like to think, expecting the attitude to have completely gone away by now is very optimistic.

> Why is it acceptable

Why would it not be acceptable?

Even in a society with zero bias in favor of men in the workplace, it's still possible that men wind up earning more due to other factors than just bias.

If men are earning more than women doing the same job while all other factors are the same, then that's unfair.

If men are earning more because they are working more hours, or because they are taking more dangerous or undesirable jobs that women choose not to pursue, or if men are choosing higher paid industries more consistently, then that's not unfair. That's economics.

I think you misunderstood the poster you replied to. He's not talking about any pay disparity, he's talking about women's preference for high earning men.

Obviously plenty of women earn more than plenty of men. They don't, as a rule, chose to marry those men.

Woke people like you see discrimination even where there is none.

Even in situations where people are paid by algorithms (i.e. only based on the work they perform, regardless of their sex), men earn more than women because they simply try to earn more (i.e. they optimise for earnings).

"Study of Uber drivers finds men earn more than women — for three key reasons"

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-uber-gender-pay-20180...

The article above doesn't discuss it, but another reason is that men work more; so for the same hourly wage ("equal pay for equal work"), men would still earn more.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/06/30/new-repo...

The parent comment was arguing that women choose to be with men who earn more than them. This was in no way a data point for wage inequality, which you seem to be implying.

Given that women on average don't earn that much less than men, it can't be that rare for women to earn more than their male partner

It's rare not due to women earning less than men, but due to women's preference to be single rather that be in a relationship with a man who earns less than them.

It may be overwhelmingly positive that women are not dependent on men financially, but it doesn't seem dating preferences and cultural norms have kept pace.

That the people in your life have led you to believe that a man’s romantic value comes from his appearance or relative income is only evidence that you need to meet better people. The reality is that women who feel that way are never going to be happy with anyone. You should check out the first chapter of Don’t Trust Your Gut if you want to know what really matters in a successful long term relationship.

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