Increasing pressure on US men for income in order to find a spouse | Hacker News Reader

Increasing pressure on US men for income in order to find a spouse

tandfonline.com

35 pointsdoener44 comments

Are we simply gonna ignore that the data is from 1890 to 1973?

Like the oldest people in the study are all dead and the youngest are 50 years old?

Some of the discussion parts are also quite "silly"

> we further assume that men with higher incomes in particular may remarry more frequently, leaving fewer mating opportunities for men with lower incomes

This only works if rich men marry multiple women, else the women are still free to marry men? Does a 5 year marriage between a rich man and a woman, then divorce and then another marriage by the man count as only 1 marriage for men and 2 for women?

The study also consistently references Hopcroft, but that study was based on 1989 survey on self reported income and how much sex you have. "Rich" men having "the most" sex might be a reality, or it might be a flaw on self reported data. Those willing to lie about their income are also willing to lie about the amount of sex they have.

All in all seems incredibly poor science, based on data that is 50 years old with "supporting" references that do not correspond to the same time period and have in their own papers acknowledgements to the problems in their methodology.... This is like a game of telephone trying to make some point about evolutionary pressure on men and the fact that half this thread is eating it up without reading it is sad. Hacker news used to have scientific literacy, now it looks like the youtube section of a joe rogan podcast...

Know a young man, an Engineer in silicon valley. No takers on his online dating app. Started his own company, changed his title to Founder and CTO, they lined up, filled his inbox.

He thought that seemed shallow. The rest of the profile info was irrelevant it seemed. I suggested a more generous interpretation. Folks 'fishing' for a partner were just throwing their line in the 'deep end'. They have to start somewhere, and there are no lack of choices.

Don’t you see the difference ?

If I understand this correctly, I think this is a very good point. This is not just putting on a mask of wealth. It would also speak a lot about personal drive and your character. Of course, a assumptions and preconceived notions would be involved but hey it's dating and socializing, not an analysis.

>This is not just putting on a mask of wealth. It would also speak a lot about personal drive and your character.

Is it? None of his other profile items pointed to "personal drive and your character"?

No, but this did.

Perhaps "personal drive and character" only show if you're a CEO, or some similar compensated position.

Maybe poor people have no drive and character. (Ayn Rand approves).

Look, I'm just making an argument out of preconceived notions (see my earlier message stating this). It's a dating app rife of this, not a deep analysis. I was assuming you were looking for an explanation.

See, "founder and CTO" would put me off dating: I think I'd prefer someone I could potentially spend some actual time with.

>I suggested a more generous interpretation. Folks 'fishing' for a partner were just throwing their line in the 'deep end'. They have to start somewhere, and there are no lack of choices.

Well, in this interpretation, money is still the differentiator. So how is it more generous? Seems to me it points to the same attitude towards relationships that your friend finds "shallow" being the case.

The 2nd part of the description. Why go fishing in the shallow end, catch a small fish? Why not just as good a partner, but with money?

That's not hard to understand. I think it's more about bitterness than logic in most cases.

The real problem here is the idea that it's somehow wrong to prefer to marry someone with money. And because that is seen as a morally bankrupt position, we then need to jump through hoops to justify their preference with a "generous" interpretation.

Perhaps the real problem is that people don't find it enough of a "morally bankrupt position".

Perhaps.

But like it or not, money (or the absence of it) has a huge effect on lifestyle, health, safety, procreation, etc. So pretending that the only purpose of marriage is to enter into an oath of true love, even though marriage itself is largely a financial contract, is maybe just a bit detached from reality.

>Why go fishing in the shallow end, catch a small fish? Why not just as good a partner, but with money?

For the same reason men don't look at money and money signals when picking female profiles (as verified by several studies). How come it works for them, but when it comes to women picking men suddenly it's a matter of not "fishing in the shallow end"?

There is indeed a logic in "all other things being equal, prefer the person with money". It's a calculating logic, not a logic of love and appreciating the other person as a person. In the end, I take offense in the very notion of "all other things being equal", as if people are replacable cogs, and money can be use for the differentiaton and sorting the best out.

In any case, the record numbers of lonely, partner-less men and women (to the point of the US surgen general calling out an "epidemic"), speaks to the success of this logic...

>I think it's more about bitterness than logic

Yes, in the sense that it iss bitterness to the fact that the selection is based on pure calculation. That's more something associated with the "oldest profession" than a basis for marriage.

Because people are not fungible?

This could be a good honey pot, create an extremely shallow/wealthy profile and never date anyone that interacts with it.

Women like ambitious men who are good at things? Seems reasonable to me

Online dating is rough. I worried over the pandemic that the main place people used to form social bonds that could turn into a romantic relationship, Work, would disappear as people retreated from offices and started working from home.

But I think the answer may be complicated than that.

Maybe people are more afraid these days to pursue romantic relationships with people they meet at work due to fear of the consequences that have been smeared all over the media in recent years. I think this is a shame. I'm happily married but I've worked in a few jobs before where I've really clicked with someone, and the thought did pass through my mind that if we were both single, maybe there could be something there. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same thought occurred to them. I have no idea how, in that situation, I would have gone about it though, but it would probably be spending a lot of time with that person outside of work as part of an extended social group. But chances to do this dwindle as people move between cities/towns more frequently for work. I guess that's what pushes people to use these dating apps.

I have a theory that people who meet their loved ones through pre-existing social groups, have happier long term relationships with their partners.

Screw Match and their silly monopoly on romance.

There’s a real risk of courting at work. Don’t do it, it’s not worth the HR investigation for sexual harassment. Multiple post employers I’ve seen some men not take no for an answer. I’ve seen some woman over react from a single attempt by a male.

tldr you hit on a girl/guy at work you do risk a HR violation.

Yeah I can definitely see this. Maybe the problem then isn't that we don't feel we can approach people at work, but that we don't have long term, large social groups where we can meet potential partners

>Maybe people are more afraid these days to pursue romantic relationships with people they meet at work due to fear of the consequences that have been smeared all over the media in recent years. I think this is a shame. I'm happily married but I've worked in a few jobs before where I've really clicked with someone, and the thought did pass through my mind that if we were both single, maybe there could be something there. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same thought occurred to them. I have no idea how, in that situation, I would have gone about it though

Anti-sexual harassment training, and more broadly the discouraging of socialization between men and women as bushbaba mentioned, has definitely reduced the opportunity for men and women to marry. The flip side of the male executive no longer being able to chase his secretary around a desk to try to pinch her on the butt is another executive not being able to politely court the secretary he is in love with (and vice versa).

I don't have a good answer for how to get the one without the other, but both are consequences of modern sensibilities.

It's just hypergamy, an evolved trait in women.

in my city at least and the rest of india but i can talk about my city in particular.

A guy is supposed to be earning big bucks. No matter how you do it, you just need big bucks. Top marks if you are a "government employee" because that signals the family will always have food on the table.

This also means, by the time you are 23-25-28, a guy needs to land something big or else he must remain a bachelor (this is still traditional, family does the arranging and finding a partner thing) .

Girls OTOH, have 2 classes. 1 where groom expects the bride to be "housewife, not going to work after marriage) so these ladies just finish studies and "wait". 2. where the guys expect their wives to be "working" so the ladies have developed this hack where they work, as literal slaves in primary schools as teachers earning a pittance but "yep, she is working" checkbox gets ticked.

its a hopeless thing really

If a government job signals a man is a good provider, a teaching job probably signals a woman likes (and is good at) dealing with children.

government jobs are like 3% of the population if you are stretching it. that means the rest of the adult population realistaically does not have a shot at government jobs but it is still the criteria.

"a teaching job probably signals a woman likes (and is good at) dealing with children."

i gave a primary school teacher as an example. it is equally okay for the same person to do bookkeeping/assistant/data entry operator. the point for these people is to say "the lady is doing a job" not what or how much is she earning.

edit: "If a government job signals a man is a good provider,"

nope. it signals that the person (guy/girl) got lucky.

So advertising works/good adwords are important?

Marry a rich man for a while, divorce and get half. The American dream.

I would suggest to men, and I didn't take my own advice but I would put of looking for a spouse until at least your 30s. Date, sure but you don't even know your own self until at least then.

Hmm. I had 3 children by the age of 30 and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. My oldest is now 21. My younger brother is just now having his second child at the age of 40 and he regrets waiting so long. His children will never have a relationship with either side grandparents (makes us both sad) …he also is just kind of an older dad and doesn’t have the same level of energy as younger parents.

My two cents is we as a species have been having children for thousands of years .. we are meant to have them when we are younger.

Things are not the same as they were 21 years ago.

> we are meant to have them when we are younger.

Yes, women are meant to have them while younger. And modern (fertile) women are increasingly deciding not to have kids until much later.

The biological clock doesn't tick the same for men.

It does, but more slowly. Sperm quality decreases with age.

The age clock still does. A 40-50 year old dad is not the same energy as a dad so where aged 20-35. Sure an 80 year can even father a child .. although let’s be honest he wouldn’t be much of a “dad”.

I'd rather say that on personal matters, it's best to be introspective as soon as you can before you start regretting the years passing by you. That was a big chunk of my 20s, living in a world of demands and obligations (very much like the post here describes.) I am still very indecisive but that's something I put up with. Being in relationships and marriage is honestly not a strict technique to follow. I leave the technique to my job, which I can turn off for the day.

Women date up, men date down

The smarter a woman is, the smaller the chance that she will find a partner.

The more a woman makes, the smaller the chance that she will find a partner.

The taller a woman is, the smaller the chance that she will find a partner.

The opposite is true for males.

But money, height and intelligence aren't everything though. If you're rich, tall and smart but don't talk to women: you're not going to have a lot to choose from. The opposite can be true, if you are short, poor and dumb but you have a few cool pics on your dating app profile: you could have plenty to choose from!

As a top earner (for my age), average looking 6 foot smart dude I thought women would just magically appear after I broke it off with my previous partner of 7 years. Created a profile on a few apps and hardly got any matches. The truth is, if you can't let your value shine through somehow, this value doesn't mean so much. After adding a few details (job title, picture of me in my car driving, doing some cool hobbies) things have changed...

Alright you convinced me, from now on I will only date smart tall rich women.

Give yourself some credit--date smart_er_, tall_er_, rich_er_ women.

But then this is just the symptom of the larger problem which is online dating in general. If you only give people a few metrics by which to measure the quality of their potential partner, and then give them a surplus of profiles to choose from, they will brutally apply those metrics to narrow down the crowd. Even if that leads them to the wrong kind of people

Where does the pressure mentioned in the title come from?

The abstract says that higher income is more important in predicting ever being married for men.

Could it be that men with lower income are not as interested in marriage? Or that men with higher income get more interested in marriage? Or some other reasoning that does not involve pressure?

The ones that don't seem very tasty don't become targets of predators?

All of these things are ridiculously gendered. s/men/women/g and it's the same. Likewise same sex relationships. And there are as many different explanations as there are people.

Loneliness, felt alone or with others, sure does suck.

I mean it makes a bit of sense. If earnings could be a proxy for financial security/stability and the goal is to raise a family then it makes sense that one seeking a family would prefer more stable partners than ones deemed less so.

Women are high-status in the dating market around age 20. Men at 20 often look like boys and are usually broke. If a woman wants a young man, then she goes for "a guy with potential" -- but as the marrying age increases -- potential is expected to have yielded success.

Great news for most people at HN and society as a whole. Mating and sex is a highly motivational force for the individual and earning a high income is beneficial for society, so it's great that individual incetives are aligned with societal ones.

This would make sense if there was a correlation between income and societal value but this is so obviously not true. I’ve personally turned down many opportunities that were low paying but would have been much better for the world than banking or fin tech bullshit. But being a teacher or working as a lawyer helping poor people or a thousand other things with real benefit do not pay well.

Capitalism optimizes profit. Any beneficial side effects are local and temporary.

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