
Why American men are getting less marriageable - nitramm
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-american-men-are-getting-less-marriageable-2018-1
======
cimmanom
Looking at this from another perspective:

As a modern woman who makes good money, I'd be comfortable in theory with
marrying a man who makes far less than I do.

The problem with that in practice is gender roles in marriage. It's still the
norm for women to be responsible for the lion's share of cooking, cleaning,
and childrearing. Even in the marriages with the most "woke" husbands I see
among my friends, the wife almost always ends up both doing more and spending
more mental energy on the home.

That means that for men, marriage lightens the burden of (for lack of a better
term) managing life, leaving more time and energy for career. For women it's
the opposite. This is the primary reason IMO why marriage is a good deal for
both parties if the breadwinner makes more than the homemaker. It's just that
men who are willing to be the homemaker are vanishingly rare. And if both are
breadwinners, almost invariably the homemaking burden falls more heavily on
the wife.

That means that from a practical (as opposed to a romantic) perspective,
marrying a man who makes significantly less than me is liable to be an
enormous burden. Why would I want to support a man both economically and
practically?

Yes, there are some men out there who would make the fair trade and do more of
the homemaking if I were the primary breadwinner. There are also a bunch who
say they'd be willing to do it, but aren't aware of what that fully entails
and aren't willing to put in the emotional investment. (See [1] and [2]).
There are also more of those men in younger generations in general; and the
ones who exist in my generation are likely to be already married - and happily
so. So I'll stay single - and happily so.

The solution, in my opinion, would be to continue to erase traditional gender
roles. If most of the men out there were ready to take on the homemaker role
enthusiastically, I would be far more willing to consider them as partners
even if they make a fraction of what I do.

~~~
PuffinBlue
> The solution, in my opinion, would be to continue to erase traditional
> gender roles. If most of the men out there were ready to take on the
> homemaker role enthusiastically, I would be far more willing to consider
> them as partners even if they make a fraction of what I do.

The solution is not merely one sided. Women must also be willing to 'give up'
those roles.

Say what you will about men stepping up but my ongoing experience in a
marriage with the woman as the bread winner and me as the home maker (with
kids) is that my wife puts herself under a lot of 'self' pressure to be the
classic mum (baking, cleaning, ironing, washing whatever). She also receives a
ton of pressure from her mother and from her friends, intended or perceived it
doesn't really matter, to maintain the 'mum to the kids and running the house'
meme.

Believe it or not we've had stand up arguments about her _not_ doing the
washing and ironing and leaving it to me, because she just can't let it go.
The most recent one is wrestling control of the kitchen from her, not in the
sense of shutting her out but letting me in. Even food purchasing, I began to
solely do that last year but New Year, New Resolutions has brought a return to
the 'we'll eat healthily, I'll cook every evening and bake at the weekend'
pantomime. Despite the fact we already ate great food and she's away with work
for at least 1 week in 6 _and_ the weekly late evenings still in work or day
trips away for conferences/meetings.

All this might sound like one big complaint but really it's just to illustrate
that it takes both sides to change in order to actually affect change.

~~~
arethuza
Perhaps its because my wife is a commercial litigation lawyer - but we've
ended up having a fairly firm "contract" as to who does what in our household.
She shops, I cook. She cleans some parts of the house, I clean others. We both
look after our own clothes. Just about everything has a clear demarcation and,
in general, we do the bits we like (or at least dislike least).

This has survived 27 years and kids so far.... :-)

~~~
PuffinBlue
Maybe I'll be after you for that contract soon :-)

We've developed a bit of a different style where I'm her 'safety net' for the
things she still puts pressure on herself to do. Like washing/ironing and
cooking. Cleaning has mainly been resolved and we do what's needed when
needed. House organisation/upkeep is mine, all critical kids care is mine.

But everything else we pretty much just communicate with each other. That
seems to have been the key to success so far.

~~~
JBlue42
I wonder if that's enculturated from how she was raised or could be our
remaining societal pressures/expectations of women (her friend group?) at work
despite rhetoric otherwise?

~~~
PuffinBlue
I asked her - it's both.

~~~
JBlue42
Ah, yeah, there we go I guess. I know as a unmarried straight, white male that
expectations are pretty low for me but married women (esp. with kids) seem to
be in a catch-22 with all this. The Guardian had a series of articles a while
back talking with women about careers and parenthood. It takes a lot of energy
to fight against stuff you grew up with as well as conscious or unconscious
societal forces.

There's also the factor of having done one thing a certain way for a long
time, getting a little possessive of it or thinking it's better. "Well, if you
do it like this...". :-/

At least y'all are talking about it and you seem to be concerned with having a
good balance.

------
Balgair
The article goes into one of the issues with masculinity, that of a Provider.
However, there are two other aspects that are also critically important in the
marriage markets: Protector and Procreator (the 3 P's, in total). These
aspects of manhood are fairly universal among cultures and throughout time
(many excerpts have been studied, but more serve to prove the rule). It is
important to remember that for most males manhood is a continually earned
trait, whereas in females womanhood is largely inherent. This means that most
males can 'loose' manhood and return to boyhood in the eyes of society. Often
this is lumped into the concept of 'honor' (though things really get messy
now). The article mostly focuses on the provider role and the interface with
money and the decline of 'blue collar' jobs. It would be instructive to also
look into the roles of protector that men may not be fulfilling (due possibly
to opiod use, obesity, etc) and the procreator role as well (obesity again,
other environmental sterilizers, etc) to get a full view of the problems many
young people are facing.

A good introduction on the 'universal' traits of manhood can be found here:
[https://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/31/the-3-ps-of-
manhoo...](https://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/31/the-3-ps-of-manhood-a-
review/)

------
Blackstone4
Interesting article. It is suggesting there is a smaller supply of
marriageable men.

On the demand side, we are also seeing more and more educated, career focused
women.

I feel like there are many who have a desire to have children and therefore
would like to marry someone who can support them. Typically this means
marrying a man who earns more than you. The thing is if you're a women, the
more you earn, the smaller the marriageable pool becomes.

~~~
daemin
Which means there is more demand for upper educated men since they are in
demand by both educated and uneducated women.

As another commented has suggested this might not be an issue when gender
roles get removed, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will just leave
both parties unsatisfied with the result.

I would argue that innate biological differences contribute to the different
gender based desires, and hence affect the different gender roles.

------
xya3453
This is rising equality in effect. The path to financial independence has
opened up to average American women over the past 40 years. Marriage rates
falling suggest that American women tend to exhibit (or feel pressured to
follow) hypergamous tendencies.

------
swiley
Looking at people I know and people I've dated, employability seems like the
least interesting thing to women.

~~~
bufferoverflow
That's factually not true, women rarely date down. Women, on average, prefer
slightly older men, equally or more educated then themselves, more successful
than themselves financially, in good physical shape, dominant/aggressive.

That's why we always hear "where did all the good men go?" from women, even
though they are surrounded by guys who throw themselves at the women.

So since more women and fewer men started going to college, the dating pool
for women shrunk a lot.

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson is famous for talking about these issues
on YouTube, highly recommended.

~~~
gaius
_That 's factually not true, women rarely date down_

I call shenanigans. A guy will no prospects and a guitar will never be wanting
for interest. It’s a cliche for a reason. Now this guy may not be husband
material, but the criteria was “date”...

~~~
badosu
This cliche is successful because it's an instance of lekking [0], giving more
freedom for female choice.

In this arena the status markers may be different from individual evaluation
(with some general markers shared).

It's pretty common to notice that women who like guys with long hair in a band
and women who like 'successful' (whatever that means) men are not usually the
same, just different selection criteria at work.

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lek_mating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lek_mating)

------
partycoder
Marital status used to be a thing. Pressure to get married may not only come
from your partner, but your family, friends and even strangers. Plus, divorce
was frowned upon a lot and shamed. That's not the case anymore.

If people want to get married, then do it. It's not for everyone.

------
roenxi
This is ... some very complicated intersection of economics, politics and
morals. I see opinions drawn from an unorthodox sample of an unorthodox
community and fixes to problems that haven't really been defined.

The topic is delicate, but the comments here have, unusually, not satisfied my
interest in the slightest. There is an interesting debate on something here,
but the parameters of the question are poorly articulated.

How is a community supposed to gauge the importance of even the opening
questions raised by this article? Do we care more about securing the next
generation? Creating a world where women get first pick of the role they will
fill? Judging the value of marriage as an institution? Whining about how
men/women have it tough?

The structure of families have fundamental and far reaching demographic
consequences. It is important at a clash-of-civilisations level and can make
or break cultures. It'd be pleasing to have a language to talk about that
without resorting immediately to anecdotes and solutions.

------
pentae
So if I read the article correctly, the average American male has lost his job
due to economic forces as well as gender equality, but it's also his fault and
his responsibility to change. Seems fair.

~~~
ameister14
Yep. Doesn't have to be fair, though - it's more important to deal with the
world as it is and take control of what you can than see who should be blamed
or pass responsibility.

~~~
pentae
I Agree. However, I'm not the average American male. It seems to me like 'he'
is getting a bit of a raw deal while simultaneously being blamed for
everything these days.

------
lukeschlather
> They reference recent results from the World Values Survey, where
> respondents were asked how much they agreed with the claim that, "If a woman
> earns more money than her husband, it's almost certain to cause problems."

That sounds a bit to me like a push poll. I wonder if you phrased the question
in a gender-neutral way how the responses would change.

~~~
xya3453
A marriage isn't comprised of gender-neutral actors.

~~~
lukeschlather
Sure. The question as phrased is pretty suggestive though. I wouldn't be
surprised if you asked that question, and the reverse question, and a gender-
neutral version of the question, you would get results that look
contradictory.

Really, you would have to ask just one question to each individual, because I
suspect if you asked all three questions you would get different responses
than if you only asked one. I'm not denying the effect, just that I think the
question is leading.

------
romanovcode
I think the job/economy weights much less then the fact that marriage gives
absolutely zero benefits for men in western society and implies a lot of
risks.

~~~
munchor
AFAIK marriage does give enormous significant breaks in most western
societies.

~~~
gambiting
Does it? I'm about to get married in the UK and I cannot name a single break
that we will get while married. I think you can transfer some of your tax-free
allowance to your spouse, but only if one of you makes less than 10k/year, so
with both of us working there is no benefit here.

It's slightly easier to get a large loan or mortgage as a married couple, but
it's not exactly impossible if you just live together as partners.

The way I see it, it's an absolutely enormous expense with almost zero
financial/economical benefit for us. I love my partner and want to get married
because I think that's the right thing to do, but if I looked at it outside of
the "romantic/traditional" angle, there is absolutely no reason to get
married.

~~~
edent
In the UK, the most important benefits are - sadly - to do with death. If you
die intestate, then the presumption is that everything is left to your spouse.
Similarly with your pension, a premature death would see the pension transfer
automatically to the person you married. That's not always the case with
partners.

You also benefit from spousal privilege, meaning you can't be compelled to
testify against the other. Although, depending on your criminal inclinations,
that may not be a strong reason to get married!

