Posts Tagged ‘marriageable mate’

There’s plenty of evidence documenting this is happening to educated white women as well

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

DeNeen Brown writes in the Washington Post today about the marriageable mate dilemma that has faced black women for years. This peg: Helena Andrews’ new book, “Bitch is the New Black.”

What few realize is that the dilemma has already struck well-educated white women who are discovering a shortage of similarly educated white men. Considering the campus gender imbalances, how could this not be happening? Numbers are hard to come by, but the most obvious hard evidence is the soaring rate of college educated white women going to sperm banks to launch their families.

 

 

This debate could get interesting…

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

I mean, if marriage isn’t that beneficial why worry about the marriageable mate issue? Conclusion: Invest in sperm banks?

From the Chronicle:

What if Marriage Is Bad for Us?
Illustration by Ellen Winkler, Original photo from istock
Enlarge Photo Illustration by Ellen Winkler, Original photo from istock
By Laurie Essig and Lynn Owens

Sometimes a belief becomes so strong that suggesting it might be wrong is nearly impossible. One such belief is that marriage is good for us. Last April, when Vermont finally recognized same-sex marriage, many of our fellow Vermonters rushed to celebrate. Neither one of us did. They were puzzled by our lack of enthusiasm. “You have to support gay marriage,” a straight colleague angrily shouted at one of us. But why do we have to celebrate any marriage? Unlike conservatives who attack gay marriage, it’s not the gay part we object to; it’s the marriage part. What does it even mean? Over the past 15 years, Americans have been fighting about that, and therefore about what it means to be a citizen and an adult.

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Is it a coincidence that…

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

…nearly everyone in this New York Times story about modern, urban communes is female? I doubt it, and yet the writer never touches the topic. I’m betting that the “marriageable mate” dilemma is a player here. Check the library on the right for more information about that.

The marriageable mate issue, again

Monday, September 14th, 2009

This time it appears in the New York Times Sunday Style section. 

From the piece:

If it feels as if the remarriage odds are bad for a woman in her 50s, they are. According to 2001 census data, 41 percent of women 50 and over who’ve been divorced have remarried, while 58.4 percent of divorced men that age are remarried.

“That’s the biggest remarriage gap for all age groups,” said Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder of the National Stepfamily Resource Center at Auburn University. “Among the divorced, the least marriageables in our society are older women, highly educated who make a good salary.”

“Studies show men tend to marry down - someone slightly younger, less educated, making less money,” Dr. Adler-Baeder said. “Women in their 50s literally don’t have a visible pool of eligible men around them.”

 

Interesting piece, and a little more data, on the “man-cession.”

Monday, August 24th, 2009

The series the New York Times is running on how the recession affects a single block in a suburb outside Los Angeles yields an interesting piece today. Here’s an example of a family coping with the balance of power change, where the husband loses his role as bread winner. The real key, of course, lies not with existing couples but would-be couples: How will women view men whose economic prospects are dim? That’s the marriageable mate issue that I predict will be the biggest development from the twin developments we’re experiencing — falling (relative) education achievements of men and a recession where most of the job losses involve males.

The writer also offers up this piece of data: In the ongoing man-cession: “:.. the downturn that has hit men much harder than women. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the gap in the male-to-female jobless rate is at a record high: 2.4 percent - 10 percent for men and 7.6 percent for women.”

 The article:

________________________________________
August 24, 2009
BETH COURT
With Dad Laid Off, Finding Ways to Hold On
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - Among the flotsam and jetsam that gather over the years in a home, there is now the random taillight behind the Winklers’ living room couch. And a 1967 Buick Riviera dashboard under the desk. When jobs are short and the savings account dwindles, selling spare parts on the Internet can help put braces in mouths, and pay a credit card bill or two.

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If boys are so desired (at least in China), how can they be in trouble?

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Good question. This New York Times article is only the latest to document sex selection practices in some countries:

SHARON LaFRANIERE
BEIJING - A bias in favor of male offspring has left China with 32 million more boys under the age of 20 than girls, creating “an imminent generation of excess men,” a study released Friday said.

For the next 20 years, China will have increasingly more men than women of reproductive age, according to the paper, which was published online by the British Medical Journal. “Nothing can be done now to prevent this,” the researchers said.

Chinese government planners have long known that the urge of couples to have sons was skewing the gender balance of the population. But the study, by two Chinese university professors and a London researcher, provides some of the first hard data on the extent of the disparity and the factors contributing to it.

In 2005 , they found, births of boys in China exceeded births of girls by more than 1.1 million. There were 120 boys born for every 100 girls.

This disparity seems to surpass that of any other country, they said - a finding, they wrote, that was perhaps unsurprising in light of China’s one-child policy.

They attributed the imbalance almost entirely to couples’ decisions to abort female fetuses.

 Proof that I’m wasting my time with this website? Before reaching that conclusion, review the “marriageable mate” section in my library. As a result of ignoring sex selection practices (abortion or worse), China faces a future political threat as thousands of young men, especially in rural areas, will be unable to find mates.

 

What happens to relationships when men lose their traditional bread winner role?

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Let’s be honest here, men do only a few things well, such as playing sports, watching sports on TV and working brutish hours to bring home the bacon. What happens when that last function is taken away, either because our education level has not kept up with a more sophisticated economy or the world dips into a prolonged recession where at least in this country more than 80% of the layoffs are men? Actually, both are happening.

Nobody’s sure, but we’re starting to find out. Or, to be more precise, white middle class women are finding out what it’s like to experience a shortage of “marriageable mates.” This CNN story – OK, it’s a bit superficial. I mean, the column is called The Frisky – explores the personal side of that dilemma.

From the story (photo courtesy of CNN):

(The Frisky) — Bread, bacon, clams - whatever you call it, women are the ones bringing it home these days.

When your boyfriend or husband is unemployed and you’re earning the dough, the relationship could suffer.

According to The New York Times over the past year, as companies from Citibank to GM announced massive layoffs, a full 82 percent of the people getting pink slips have been men. Any day now, women are expected to become the majority of the American workforce.

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Romance, the gender imbalances and the recession — not a healthy mix for anyone

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Today, the WPost publishes a good piece about the recession’s impact on dating. Women look to men to be reliable providers and this recession, where 80% of the layoffs involve men, has stripped many men of that mantle. Why should women bother?

A quote from one of the men (photo courtesy of the Post):

“Inadequacy,” he said. “I can’t harp on that word enough. I just feel inadequate. Why have I not found a job yet? And what if this happens eight years from now when I’m married and have a 2-year-old? Do I go through this again? Do I trust myself that I can pull it off? And I do, but in the midst of it, you definitely question yourself.”

  The article doesn’t get into the fact that the recession is only accelerating an existing trend. The campus gender imbalances have been producing that same outcome, although at a slower pace. To see where we’re headed here, review the articles in the “social consequences” library on the right.

More evidence that women have become the majority in the workforce…

Friday, February 6th, 2009

The recession is the driver, according to this NYTimes story, with 82% of the job losses affecting men. The significance I see here is the recession accelerating a trend already well under way, triggered by education gender imbalances. Most of the impact here will be social (an exception: the tendency of women to avoid careers thought critical to economic competitiveness, such as science and engineering), as in the ability of women to find suitable mates. As the recent NYTimes magazine article illustrated, many women are forging ahead as parents regardless of whether they find a “marriageable mate.”

The Times article:

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Single parent by choice: numbers going up in this (odd) NYT piece…

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

This NYTimes Sunday magazine article provides a good profile of women unable to find a suitable spouse deciding to be mothers on their own. It also raises this question: Is it possible to write a magazine-length piece and never once raise the question of why these women lacked suitable mates? Apparently that is possible, as demonstrated in this piece. Could it be connected to the sparseness of similarly educated men? You won’t find out from this piece, but you might get some idea about that while sifting through the stories linked in the “social consequences” library on the right.