This is a very interesting study. Well, some may not find it very interesting but I am sure it is already having a very big impact on the society. Scarcity of men leads women to prioritize lucrative careers over starting a family, study finds by Mane Kara-Yakoubian, PsyPost, January 1, 2024 A series of four studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined the role of sex ratio on women’s family planning and career choices, finding that when men become a rare commodity, women gravitate towards high-paying careers and postpone starting families. Scarcity of men leads women to prioritize lucrative careers over starting a family, study finds (psypost.org) The basic idea is that women are having to (or feel like they are having to) focus on developing a career and earning a high income because men are harder to find -- men who can financially provide for their family and who are reliable, specifically. Due to rising costs (of land in cities, housing, healthcare, and college), it has become harder for one person to be able to provide for a family. That means women have been under pressure to be able to provide money for their future family. But it's more than that. The family structure has been changing. People in society are less committed to their romantic partners. Much less than they used to be in the early 1960s. Women can't count on a man staying with them, and have to be prepared to provide for themselves. Remarriage is also much more difficult. With sex becoming much more accessible, it's very difficult for a woman over the age of 35 who has been married in the past with children to find another man who can provide for her and wants to marry her. Why would another man with money want to marry her when it's not difficult for him to get sex from other women, probably women younger than her, requiring no commitment? Older women are finding that in the dating game, men with more money who are capable of comfortably providing for a family are already taken. It's probably something like an 8 to 1 imbalance, if not worse than that. I feel something else has to be quickly mentioned -- one of the ingredients in the mix. Among the younger generation, there are a lot of young women who have never been taught anything about commitment. They think it's just normal to sleep around with many males, that it's not a big deal to cheat on the man she is currently with, and see no reason to think otherwise. Obviously this can make her prospects of a stable marriage or even long-term relationship not so good. Men typically do not want to remain financially committed to a woman he knows is likely to have sex with other men. (I don't mean to start a debate about that in this thread but am just mentioning it as a fact) This isn't the first study to find something similar to this. Scarcity of college men leads women to choose briefcase over baby Science News, April 17, 2012 American women today are more likely to earn college degrees than men with women receiving 57 percent of all bachelor's and 60 percent of all master's degrees. New research has found the ratio of men to women dramatically alters women's choices about career and family. Research from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and University of Minnesota has found the ratio of men to women dramatically alters women's choices about career and family. When men are scarce, women delay having children and instead pursue high-paying careers. "Most women don't realize it, but an important factor in a woman's career choice is how easy or difficult it is to find a husband," said Kristina Durante, assistant professor of marketing at the UTSA College of Business. "When a woman's dating prospects look bleak -- as is the case when there are few available men -- she is much more likely to delay starting a family and instead seek a career." In one study, the researchers examined the ratio of single men to single women in each U.S. state and Washington D.C. They found that as bachelors became scarce, the percentage of women in high-paying careers increased, women delayed having children, and had fewer kids when they finally decided to start a family. In another study on college campuses, the researchers led women to believe that there were either more men or less men on campus by having participants read one of two news article about the student population. When women read that there were fewer men than women on campus, they became more motivated to pursue ambitious careers rather than start a family. "A scarcity of men leads women to invest in their careers because they realize it will be difficult to settle down and start a family," said study coauthor Vlad Griskevicius, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "In fact, the strongest effects were found for women who are least likely to secure a mate." This research highlights a sexual paradox associated with women's economic and educational advancement. "As women pursue more education and more lucrative careers when they can't find a husband, the ironic effect is that it will only get harder to find a husband as women become more educated and earn higher salaries," said Durante. "This is because a woman's mating standards keep increasing as she becomes more educated and wealthy, which further decreases the number of suitable mates. another source: Study finds women prioritize lucrative careers over starting families due to lack of men, Brian Neeley, Business News, January 1, 2024 Another study that showed something so obvious that we don't even need to have a discussion about it: Women more than men adjust their careers for family life Pew Research Center, Kim Parker, October 1, 2015 In a 2013 survey, we found that mothers were much more likely than fathers to report experiencing significant career interruptions in order to attend to their families needs. Part of this is due to the fact that gender roles are lagging behind labor force trends. While women represent nearly half of the U.S. workforce, they still devote more time than men on average to housework and child care and fewer hours to paid work, although the gap has narrowed significantly over time. Among working parents of children younger than 18, mothers in 2013 spent an average of 14.2 hours per week on housework, compared with fathers' 8.6 hours. And mothers spent 10.7 hours per week actively engaged in child care, compared with fathers' 7.2 hours. Another factor is the way that society views the bond between mothers and their children. In a 2012 Pew Research survey, the vast majority of Americans (79%) rejected the notion that women should return to their traditional role in society. Yet when they were asked what is best for young children, very few adults (16%) said that having a mother who works full time is the "ideal situation". Some 42% said that having a mother who works part time is ideal and 33% said what’s best for young children is to have a mother who doesn't work at all. Even among full-time working moms, only about one-in-five (22%) said that having a full-time working mother is ideal for young children. related threads: Here's one reason white women are not having kids (Apr 24, 2018 in Economics) Nearly half of U.S. women under 45 are childless
I grew up before dating apps, thought they were a cool idea, but I see now the problem they are causing society, not sure how the new generations are going to solve it
I don't know how much of this I buy. Men aren't going to give up on making money and aim for being a house husband. College isn't for everybody and college isn't always a path to success. I put my youngest son through trade school and he just bought his first home at the ripe old age of 21.
Looks like there's a similar problem in Australia: Shortage of eligible men as women struggle in dating game Fellow demographer Bernard Salt, based on Census data published in March 2012, found it was most competitive for single women of marrying age. There are 1.3 million single women aged 25-34 living in Australia. In the same age bracket, however, there are only 86,000 single, heterosexual, well-off or "eligible'' men earning above $60,000 a year. Man drought sees shortage of eligible men as women struggle in dating game, The Courier Mail, by Peter Michael, January 19, 2014
related thread about that topic: Alex Youseff on Hookup Culture It looks like one of the problems is many of these young women have gotten their standards way up, with a huge pool of young women serial dating a very small pool of guys. But of course these type of dating patterns are unlikely to result in a long-term committed relationship. Some men have too many options to want to settle down, while many other young men are left with the short end of the stick. By the time these women near the age of 40 and realize their dating prospects have diminished, there's only a very small window of time to have children before their reproductive clock ticks out. And by this point in time, they're already going to have a harder time finding a good quality man who wants to date them. There's a big difference between an average 21-year-old young woman going out into the dating game and a 38-year-old woman.
A self-inflicted problem by women themselves. Can't work up and pity party for them. Go buy some rubber dicks and whine to your therapists.
I didn't have time to read your article but the premise seems deceiving. There cannot be a scarcity of men when the population is fairly evenly split. Even if we take the simple view that 60% of college graduates are women that implies that the reason for the scarcity is because there is a 20 point gap in the sexes for college educated people. Even if that were true that would imply that for non college educated women there would be a 20 point surplus of men. IMO this is a total red herring and there is only cross correlation with that data. The real problem is technology changed the world. In the past people's world was much smaller. The pool of men woman could date was limited. Technology has opened up everything. Dating apps have expanded the pool of available men. This means woman have become more picky and because the selection is greater. They want men with high income, good jobs, good looks, tall, fit, etc... That means a huge percentage of women compete for a small subset of top tier men. That is the shortage. Those high level men have a surplus of options. The other men that did not make the cut also are facing a shortage of available women. If you ,make minimum wage, average looking and short your pool of available woman is very small. There is no shortage of men because there are many men that are single and want a woman. The problem is the women do not want those men so there is a shortage of men that meets their standards.
Oh I'm sorry, I'll try to restrict my posts to being one-line. I know the majority of people have very short attention spans.
The scarcity is of men that women consider eligible. They have always wanted those things. The differences now are that technology has made the small minority of such men available to all women at once -- and therefore all women available to such men -- while women's increasing education and incomes sharply narrow the set of men they consider eligible. Right: and what is their motive for giving up their harems for one woman who wants to be a mom more than their lover? Mom bods are not that appealing. Right. You've heard of people in countries that do not allow democratic elections "voting with their feet" by leaving? Well, young modern women are voting for polygamy with a different part of their anatomy.
Is that why you could only address 1 sentence in that long response to you? Anyways, I am not seeing the shortage issue either. Maybe in certain areas of society, I bet in the past, nurses had a hard time finding qualified males. As the profession was dominant with women. But overall, 50% males, 50% females. +/- a few %
I think that's the shortage they are talking about; "eligible men", not men in general. In the pre-dating app era, in a small town, you pretty much knew the "eligible men" by the time you graduated high school, and could act accordingly, but with dating apps as a woman you'll never reach the end of the dating pool and likely will find it difficult to commit because a better option could be a swipe away.
article from Vox: The record-low birthrate offers yet another sign that millennials are economically screwed by Alex Press, May 31, 2018 The low birthrate offers yet another sign that millennials are economically screwed - Vox The concern is that the number of women who want children but aren't having them is growing. As Lyman Stone wrote in the New York Times, "the gap between the number of children that women say they want to have (2.7) and the number of children they will probably actually have (1.8 ) has risen to the highest level in 40 years." Rather than a "natural" reflection of a changing society, this is a political problem that needs to be addressed, according to the opinion of the article. U.S. Birthrate Drops 4th Year in a Row, Possibly Echoing the Great Recession by Liam Stack, May 17, 2019 The United States' birthrate fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2018, bringing the number of people born in the country to its lowest level in 32 years, according to provisional figures published on Wednesday by the federal government. It said the fertility rate in the United States also fell to a record low. U.S. Birthrate Drops 4th Year in a Row, Possibly Echoing the Great Recession - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
