Imbalanced marriage market

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Men are large, demanding and can be difficult to handle. Men make poor pets. A woman is unlikely to marry a man whose economic and social prospects would make him a burden rather than an asset.

https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/05/19/g-s1-122695/the-missing-men-of-the-american-marriage-market?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

The missing men of the American marriage market

by Greg Rosalsky, NPR, May 19, 20266:30 AM ET

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The economic and educational trajectories of men and women have increasingly diverged, with a large swath of men falling behind.

For example, women are now more likely to graduate from college than men. In recent years, female students have made up almost 60 percent of undergraduate students, and outnumbered men on college campuses by more than two million, according to one government estimate. Meanwhile, many men who didn’t get a college education have been struggling economically, and have been much more likely to end up on drugs, in prison, and unemployed…

College-educated women have largely maintained high marriage rates, but they’ve done so by increasingly getting hitched to men without a college education. But they’re not ending up with just any men in this demographic pool. They’re, on average, partnering up with the higher-earning ones.

Meanwhile, this study suggests that women without a college education are left with a shrinking pool of economically stable husbands. They’re still having kids, but their marriage rate has plummeted, and many are raising their kids by themselves…

Economists refer to this as “assortative mating,” and they’ve found it’s one important driver of growing inequality…

Women without college degrees are still having children at relatively high rates — but they’re increasingly doing so without partners able to reliably contribute income, time, or support. Kids raised by single mothers are, on average, at higher risk of poverty, incarceration, unemployment, and a range of other hardships…[end quote]

College-educated women scoop up the college-educated men and skim the cream of the non-college-educated men (small business owners, mechanics, contractors, electricians, plumbers, pilots, HVAC technicians, etc.).

The non-college-educated women reject the many men who didn’t get a college education and have been struggling economically, and have been much more likely to end up on drugs, in prison, and unemployed.

The political scene has already been impacted by these angry male incels. They are a destabilizing force that is added to the excess elites that historian Peter Turchin flagged. And the kids raised by single moms will (statistically) present a further burden on society.

This is the multidecade consequence of the loss of blue-collar manufacturing jobs that paid well enough for a non-college-educated man to marry and have a family.

The problem will be even worse in the future as AI displaces many college-educated workers.

Wendy

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Maybe not. Maybe it makes it better? After all, one cause of the imbalanced marriage market is that women are getting a far higher proportion of college degrees than men. There are far more recent female college graduates than men, which makes it exceedingly difficult for economically unstable men to marry. Those relatively successful young women obtain all the economically successful men, leaving fewer marriageable men in the pool.

However, if AI ends up wiping out a lot of entry-level white collar jobs - the jobs that are disproportionately filled by young female college graduates - that is more likely to level the playing field, not exacerbate it. Not in a good way, of course. But you’ll end up with more of a gender rebalancing between the economically stable women and men, by proportionally reducing the number of economically stable young women.

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I can attest to this disparity…and to speak firsthand on the potential disaster awaiting a woman who punches too far below her weight! Pretty much the only beneficiaries are the folk who’re involved in family/divorce lawyers and associated hangers on.

Heads-up for anyone with unmarried, well educated children/grandchildren…especially girls. Don’t be shy about background checks!!

I think dh and I feel we both “married up” in different but complimentary ways.

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Men would do well to borrow from the women’s playbook.

Work twice as hard to be considered half as good.

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…and also learn from womens’ experience that such hard earned achievement will still be viewed suspiciously by any also-rans.

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I’d much rather see a female doctor or dentist my age than a male. For the simple reason the female had to work harder to get where she is. That doesn’t mean she’s better, but all things being equal, she probably is.

For younger people I don’t think it matters as much. But I used to work in a male dominated industry. Things were worse for women, no question about it.

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When carpenters got hammers the housing got better built.

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And, therefore, to reproduce. Darwin in action.

Maybe if we last long enough, we’ll enter an era of matriarchy. Has to be better than the the patriarchy we’ve had forever.

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