
Women are struggling to find men who make as much money as they do - rblion
https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/women-are-struggling-to-find-men-who-make-as-much-money-as-they-do/
======
chongli
The article talks at length about guys who are struggling or generally worse
off than women but it makes no mention of the guys who have given up. I wonder
how much that plays a role? The Japanese media have tales for years about
Hikikomori [1] but the phenomenon certainly isn’t unique to Japan.

It’s one thing to call someone lazy, it’s quite another to try to understand
why they live the way they do. Personally, I don’t believe in laziness as a
real concept, at least not over the long term.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori)

~~~
fre3k
I make good money (being a reasonably able software dev), and though
physically attracted to women, am not interested in them, and haven't been for
over a decade now. I was somewhat successful in my youth, but certainly no
cassanova.

I find chasing and/or engaging in romantic relationships with women costs me
far more than I estimate their worth at (the relationship, not the women
themselves). And I'm not just talking money. I'm talking time, freedom,
responsibility, cognitive cycles, etc. I think my time is best spent elsewhere
on hobbies or video games or mindless entertainment or work.

~~~
lazyjones
I presume you've heard of the [https://www.mgtow.com](https://www.mgtow.com)
community/movement?

~~~
fre3k
Sure, but I don't identify with it. I haven't really been hurt past, you know,
hey I like this girl and she doesn't like me boo hoo.

Just don't find the pursuit or the time dedications or the impact on my life
worth it.

~~~
newnewpdro
It's not, unless you want to start a family. Then the whole vetting process
disguised as "dating" is kind of important with significant life-changing
returns.

Personally I decided I didn't want kids decades ago, it drastically changed
the distribution of priorities. I, like you, simply can't be bothered with
dating now. It's just not worth the time and effort, risk of STDs, risk of
pregnancy, risk of crazy, drama, etc.

Having said that however, there is something to be said for having a reliable
partner in old age when hospital visits and navigating the healthcare system
becomes a regular activity. It's problematic to be alone in a hospital, for a
variety of reasons.

------
DoreenMichele
My opinion: Heterosexual women default to seeking _good providers_ because if
pregnancy happens, whether planned or not, that can make it impossible to
sustain a hard charging career for the woman.

Pregnancy can be debilitating. Women are more likely than men to take time off
work to care for the new baby. Breastfeeding is done by women.

These are practical issues that make it hard to not feel on some deep level
like you really need a man who is capable of earning enough money to support
you, him and a child if things do not go according to plan. If she is play the
primary breadwinner role, gets pregnant and things go sideways, then what?

(Opinion of a woman. N=1, though.)

~~~
johnisgood
I think my comment is going to be pointless, but... As a male, I would love to
take time off work to care for the baby. Only after a minimum 6 months of
breastfeeding, ideally 2 years with appropriate complementary feeding, of
course. That said, if we can afford it, I would love to be there at all times.
:P These years matter so much for the child's development. Plus, it is not
like I would not be there for them when I am off work, but yeah.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's a simple statement of fact that women tend to take more time off than men
for such things. It is in no way a suggestion that this is what men or women
actually _want._

I think a lot of it is driven by practical considerations. Taking any time off
work can undermine your earning capacity, so if you have a primary breadwinner
in the family, it gets hard to make that choice.

I would love to help foster a world where this worked differently. But, for
now, this is generally how it works for most people.

~~~
johnisgood
> It's a simple statement of fact that women tend to take more time off than
> men for such things. It is in no way a suggestion that this is what men or
> women actually want.

I was not at all disagreeing or making a comment regarding that. I just merely
expressed my wants, hence why I started with stating that it is going to be a
pointless comment. :)

~~~
DoreenMichele
Eh, not arguing either. Just trying to be clear and trying to say "I would
love to help create a world in which you could do that."

~~~
johnisgood
No worries, and thank you for that! I hope you succeed, I (and I am sure a lot
of other people!) would really love that.

------
ikeyany
Alternative title: Women really don't want to date men who make less than
them.

Maybe we should look at the women who are okay with doing so and wonder why
others aren't like these women.

~~~
demarq
This is one of those comments that's on every mans mind but no one wants to be
the one that says it

------
belorn
I wish someone would make a definitive meta study where they take the median
wage for a country and poll women there if they require a higher income from
potential partners before considering marriage.

From what I have seen those poll numbers tend to stay the same regardless of
the median income in any given country, which implies that practical aspects
is simply an rationale to explain an already made decision. If practical
reasons was the primary cause we would expect to see a higher poll numbers in
low income countries and a significant lower poll number in countries with
high median income and strong well fare system. With free medical care,
guarantied housing and food, the risks are reduced and thus preventative
measures like only seeking good providers should be of relative lower
importance.

------
KingMachiavelli
The actual study:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12603](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jomf.12603)

Really the most suprissing part is that a large portion of unmarried men, age
25-45, make <$25,000 a year.

~~~
ars
> Really the most suprissing part is that a large portion of unmarried men,
> age 25-45, make <$25,000 a year.

Swap cause and effect and it's no longer surprising. Men who don't make a lot
of money have a hard time getting married.

That's been that way since the dawn of humanity, and should not surprise
anyone.

~~~
blaser-waffle
We generally had wars and famines and plagues to deal with them, though.

Also heard a statistic that the average guy is less likely to graduate from HS
and University than a women of similar age/class/race/etc. Degrees directly
correlate to $$$, and ladies are doing a better job of getting them, though
they still tend to choose non-STEM degrees and roles.

------
heedlessly2
The problem is that women who make a good amount of money cannot always land a
man who is financially successful.

A 30 year old man with a good career and assets will try to date the 23 year
old who looks like a fitness model. That's not to say women who make money
cannot look like fitness models. There are just few of them because time is a
limited resource.

The other part is that men are not on a certain timeline. A man can could
spend his 30s and 20s casually dating, then get married at 45 and have kids.
Whereas women try to get married before 30, so then she can have a kid or two
before it's too late. Sure 35 year old women can get pregnant, but it's common
to have miscarriages at that age.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
> A 30 year old man with a good career and assets will try to date the 23 year
> old who looks like a fitness model.

These men sound very shallow

~~~
CapricornNoble
What you call shallow, other people with abundant dating options might call
utility maximization.

------
arm64future
Women marry up or across on the social ladder. Men marry across or down on the
social ladder.

~~~
mikelyons
Does it also follow that all women are going for the top 20% of men? Or is
this debunked

~~~
blockmarker
Actually, this is false. IIRC, it seems that most women on OkCupid considered
80% of men under-average, but still messaged them. Which is strange to say the
least.

~~~
blaser-waffle
These guys may be not the most attractive but 1) they may be all that is out
there, 2) ladies are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt ("maybe he
just has bad pictures?"), and 3) maybe that's all they think they can get.
Nothing crazy or irrational about it.

When it's 2am and the bar is closing you hit on who you think you can go home
with, not the absolute hottest person in the bar.

------
toomuchtodo
> “Now it’s the case that more highly educated women are marrying down,” says
> Lichter. “Men have to get with the program.”

This....is unlikely to happen. Men will simply exit the dating market faster
than women will tolerate that they have to settle (similar to a cooling
housing market where buyers go elsewhere because sellers aren’t motivated).

EDIT: User "rblion" explains why in this thread very well: "I think this is a
bigger problem than just economics, it's a cultural one too. You have a entire
generation of boys/teens/men who either grew up with or are growing up with an
endless amount of entertainment (games, movies, shows, music, porn, drugs),
the consequences of outsourcing and automation, and the rise of feminism/PC-
culture. All at one time, of course many are giving up or just opting out."

If you can barely hold onto the socioeconomic ladder already, are you going to
be a masochist and try to meet your partner's (likely high) expectations as
well? Probably not.

~~~
johnisgood
> Men have to get with the program.

Sigh... but it was a problem when men did. Damned if you do, damned if you do
not. Am I alone in finding this ridiculous?

~~~
Ancalagon
Its the opinion of one author, I wouldn't generalize it across all of society.

~~~
johnisgood
Fair point. I hope this will not "catch on". It does not make it less
ridiculous though. :P

~~~
mikelyons
Is the alternative to just oppress women so that they can't compete with men
and raise the bar?

~~~
johnisgood
No? Why would you say that?

~~~
mikelyons
I was pointing to the absurdity of

> Sigh... but it was a problem when men did.

so take it as the opposite of the way you did, I'm not good at text sarcasm.

------
rdtwo
Solution is to move to a tech hub

~~~
m463
"Man Jose" for instance (named because the male to female ratio is one of the
highest)

------
ShadowKitten
I've not once had a woman ask me how much I make or what I do for a living.

~~~
ars
> or what I do for a living.

For real? It's never come up ever? Do you tend not to date for long?

------
75dvtwin
There was a monologue on exact same subject by Tucker Carlson, may be half a
year ago or more, and it was somewhat US-centric.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7OS2o-mMg0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7OS2o-mMg0)

It has been thoroughly laughed at, though, by hosts of 'the View', for example

[https://abcnews.go.com/theview/video/tucker-carlson-
suggests...](https://abcnews.go.com/theview/video/tucker-carlson-suggests-
high-earning-women-causing-drop-60147896)

------
ars
Doesn't this just mean that the men who make decent money already found
spouses?

And presumably those men aren't interested in women who spend a lot of time
working, since they have that covered.

~~~
rblion
I think it's safe to say ~80% of the women are attracted to ~20% of the men
(physically fit, financially solvent, pleasant personality).

~~~
newnewpdro
I don't see why you'd say that about just women, something like that is
probably going on for both sexes.

Fortunately reality kicks in and people generally learn to swing their own
weight, it's sort of part of becoming an adult.

~~~
rblion
Because that's what the article is talking about...

Relax. Breathe.

Yes, it's probably true vice versa too like many things.

------
Ancalagon
I couldn't find the full article but I did find some figures. Interesting that
this is the first time I've read about hypergamy being mentioned in an
academic context, I didn't realize it was an actual term used to describe
people looking to marry "better" than themselves.

~~~
mikelyons
It expresses more as repulsion to someone perceived to be in a lower
social/economic status than you and an attraction so someone who seems to be
in a better status than you. It's most likely not majorly conscious.

------
TheCryptoTengu
32 years old and all i ever heard or seen was established men get brought down
Financially,Spiritually,Emotionally and intellectually by bad marriages or
relationships. Some men i guess dont even try to raise the bar and just coast
through life.

------
HNLurker2
According to this I need to be: Atleast 6'3 Know to cook Six figure salary

------
lazyjones
These women struggle simply because they compete with much younger and more
attractive women who are perfectly content with old, wealthy and unattractive
men who aren't even looking for monogamous relationships.

Perhaps it's wiser for them to find a spouse at a younger age, before they
make a lot of money.

~~~
toomuchtodo
While not PC, this is somewhat accurate (women competing with younger cohorts
overall) based on data.

> In it, researchers studied the “desirability” of male and female users,
> based on how many messages nearly 200,000 users, all of whom were seeking
> opposite-sex partners, got over one month on a “popular, free online-dating
> service” — and if those sending the messages were desirable based on the
> same criteria.

> The researchers determined that while men’s sexual desirability peaks at age
> 50, women’s starts high at 18 and falls from there.

> “The age gradient for women definitely surprised us — both in terms of the
> fact that it steadily declined from the time women were 18 to the time they
> were 65, and also how steep it was,” said Elizabeth Bruch, an associate
> professor of sociology at the University of Michigan and an author of the
> study. [1] [2]

> A woman’s desirability peaks at 21, which, ironically enough is the age that
> men just begin their “prime,” i.e. become more desirable than average.
> Following that dotted line out, you can see that a woman of 31 is already
> “past her prime,” while a man doesn’t become so until 36. As we mentioned
> above, after age 26, a man has more potential matches than his female
> counterparts, which is a drastic reversal of the proportion in young
> adulthood, when women are much more sought-after. Because men’s dating
> preferences skew so young, and women’s are age-equitable, men peak later,
> and have a longer plateau of desirability, than women. [3]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/style/dating-apps-
online-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/style/dating-apps-online-men-
women-age.html)

[2]
[https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/4/8/eaap981...](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/4/8/eaap9815.full.pdf)

[3] [https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-case-for-an-older-
woman-99d8...](https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-case-for-an-older-
woman-99d8cabacdf5)

------
dundercoder
Perhaps this correlates with the shift to getting married later in life as
well?

------
richliss
In these women’s world dating is like Top Trumps but they bring along an
unofficial card set for themselves where their attributes are far higher than
reality and the cards the other player (the man) gets are all scored lower
than the official set.

The woman in the photo probably thinks of herself as an 8.5, is probably a 7
with makeup and a 6 without. Every man has to be an 8.5 even if she says 7 and
above is fine but she’d call him a 6 just so he knows how lucky he is to be
dating her as she’s an 8.5

It’s the dating world equivalent of CDO selling lol.

Once upon a time a guy got away who was probably right for her but she thought
she was deserving of better. Probably after buying some expensive shoes
because as we all know $1500 shoes make a woman who is a 7 turn into an 8 in
men’s eyes.

Articles like this are a good reminder to do something nice for our partners
who aren’t money obsessed self important fantasists. The idea of going back to
the dating market and having to bend over backwards for that type of woman is
mind sharpener alright.

