
An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf] - nkurz
http://www.jeremygreenwood.net/papers/fgg14.pdf
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zxcvvcxz
Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual
behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control
became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I
think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e.
Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago.

Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increasing divorce rates be
explained similarly by risk? There is much less risk of divorcing now, women
are about as financially independent as men, and it could be argued there is a
greater safety net for single parents (e.g. [1]). This is interesting because
it would imply that in the natural state of things, men's primary family
purpose is/was as a provider/protector of some sort. So as that need
diminishes, perhaps it shouldn't be the norm to expect everyone to get
married.

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_Families)

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discodave
I agree with you but would quibble on one thing "women are about as
financially independent as men"... I would say that women are about 70-80% as
financially independent as men, due to the gender pay gap. That gap is even
higher if you consider women's under representation in high paying jobs (e.g.
tech).

However... That's light years better the past when women were essentially
considered to be the property of their father or husband.

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seany
The gender pay gap is a myth. Even major publications refute it
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-
tha...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-
the-equal-pay-myth/)
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023035327045794837...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303532704579483752909957472)

~~~
nl
That's not what it says at all.

Pulling quotes from the Forbes article:

 _According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time working women earned
81 percent of what full-time working men earned in 2010... The wage gap
statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of
different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for
the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all
men and women classified as full-time workers.... the average full-time
working man spends 8.14 hours a day on the job, compared to 7.75 hours for the
full-time working woman_

So yes. The wage gap is real. But no, it doesn't necessarily mean that women
are paid less for the same work.

In the context of this conversation, about the financial independence of women
that 81% figure seems entirely appropriate. It's fair to argue about the
reasons for it, but that doesn't seem relevant to the facts relating the
financial independence of women vs men.

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AnthonyMouse
> In the context of this conversation, about the financial independence of
> women that 81% figure seems entirely appropriate. It's fair to argue about
> the reasons for it, but that doesn't seem relevant to the facts relating the
> financial independence of women vs men.

The reasons for it are extremely relevant. If the pay gap is primarily a
result of factors outside of an individual's control (e.g. sex discrimination)
then it makes women less independent, but if all a woman has to do to make the
same money as a man is to work the same job in the same way then she has the
same level of independence, regardless of whether other women choose lower
paying jobs.

~~~
nl
Yes, you are probably right, and I take it back. The reasons probably are
relevant, but only insofar as exploring how the gender pay gap effects risk.

Do some women take low paying jobs because they are often the primary
caregiver for children?

Nevertheless, the pay gap is a fact.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Do some women take low paying jobs because they are often the primary
> caregiver for children?

There are undoubtedly many different reasons, which mostly boil down to
individuals making decisions to meet societal expectations even though the
alternative choice(s) were equally available.

> Nevertheless, the pay gap is a fact.

The trouble is it's a misleading fact because people will assume the primary
cause is employer sex discrimination when it isn't, which changes both the
consequences of the pay gap and the solutions to reduce it.

~~~
siddboots
> The trouble is it's a misleading fact because people will assume...

You can't blame facts for the ways in which they might be misinterpreted.

Besides, this is not a new idea. In my observation, people are now quite used
to the idea that the pay gap is a result of a much broader social gender
dynamic, and that employer discrimination is only one part of that picture.

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lordnacho
I wonder if there's a similar thesis about why homosexuality is now well
accepted in many societies. In Denmark for instance they pride themselves on
being at the front of the sexual revolution as well as being free and open
about gays. The change also happened at roughly the same time as De-
Stigmatization.

I can't quite make out the analogy though. Why would there be an economic
disincentive to be gay in the past, and how has it changed?

~~~
theorique
The historical social stigma against homosexuality, and the consequent high
risk of losing your job or social position, probably kept many homosexuals in
the closet who would have been open in a more permissive time.

Nowadays, since nobody is fired (at least in the West) for homosexual
activities or relationships, the economic penalty is eliminated.

~~~
kefka
My state, Indiana, just made it legal specifically to fire or demote people
because of their LGBTQ preference. That was in challenge to the recent Supreme
court case regarding Hobby Lobby.

~~~
theorique
Point taken. I should qualify my statement to be "many parts of the West",
then. It's pretty unlikely that a person would be fired for homosexuality in
New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, for example.

~~~
kefka
It wasn't really a point; it was more a warning to stay away. And if you're
here (Like I am), try to get out.

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vixen99
So how will the model be used? Isn't this important given that the conclusions
in this paper could be stated by anyone thinking about the subject for ten
minutes? Abstracts usually tell us about the paper and the reasons for
conducting the research. This one does not.

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detcader
The paradigm of woman as private property has been losing popularity,
obviously. We have to recognize that the "newer" constructions of womanhood
are not necessarily positive.

~~~
obstinate
You seem to be implying that woman-as-property was better than what we have
today. Presumably that is not what you meant. Perhaps an edit to clarify?

~~~
Fdndjxjxr
At the risk of being lambasted as a misogynist, I think he's referring to the
current trend towards an informal return to harems, where a majority of women
court a minority of men, and vice-versa. That just has to do with how we
humans are naturally polygamous creatures and the sexual revolution has gotten
rid of a lot of the societal factors keeping people in strict monogamy.

~~~
anentropic
Is this a real thing or just your fevered imagination?

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curiously
Female empowerment seems to share high correlation with the availability of
contraceptives. For instance, countries where it is widely available, there is
strong women's right and advocacy whereas in other countries, for religious or
societal reasons, seems to lack it and women enjoy the same level of freedom
and power in the 19th century.

This newfound glory of the female seems to have devastating impact on
traditional familial values, where countries like South Korea and Japan have
extremely low birth rates and marriages. In countries where fertility rate is
not as severely impacted, divorce rate seems extremely high, leading to large
number of offsprings raised with a single mom (as most custody ends up this
way) and no male authority figure (shown to have negative effect on male
offsprings). The single father who bears the grunt of the financial burden in
low socioeconomic classes face higher chance of incarceration, harm and
substance abuse. The single mom who make the living now must spend less time
with her kids which has negative effects.

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dj-wonk
> There are 14 parameter values to determine, {β, ϕ, ζ, γ, δ, θ, ι, ω, μ, α,
> τ, λ, η, σ}.

Using Greek letters may follow in the economics tradition, but it is a pain
for humans who need to match up symbols with concepts.

~~~
michaelchisari
Using easily readable/recognizable variable names is one thing computer
programmers got right. It's always frustrating to read mathematic or economic
models that use symbols instead.

I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but I haven't heard it yet.

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jacobolus
The reason is that it makes everything much more compact, which facilitates
symbolic manipulation by reducing the space that symbols take, so that the
differences between each step can be easily spotted, and in particular so that
it’s easier to write down each step, which is especially important when
working with pencil and paper.

The problem with short cryptic symbols comes when there are so many symbols
that it’s hard to keep them straight, when symbol uses fall far from their
definitions, when the same symbol is overloaded to mean different things, or
when the author’s and the reader’s cultural conventions about symbols are
different.

In a programming context, short variable names are extremely handy when either
(a) the scope of the variable is limited, or (b) there’s a strong convention
associating the name with the meaning, so that someone seeing the name knows
immediately what it represents. For example, writing _pi_ instead of
_circle_constant_ , writing _i_ instead of _loop_index_ , etc. tends to make
code more readable rather than less.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Further, there are often conventions as to which symbols are used in which
context.

For example, \phi and \psi (with subscripts) are commonly used as a
basis/frame for a vector space, \delta commonly represents a difference of two
quantities, \rho is typically a density and \gamma is a decay rate. (These
examples are fairly physics-specific, but other fields have similar
conventions.) So if notation is well chosen, the reader doesn't need to
remember as much unique notation as one might expect.

