
Bitter Pill - DeusExMachina
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/05/bitter-pill
======
brad0
> One important strategy that allows women both to create a safer exit for
> themselves and to increase their bargaining power going into a marriage is
> to develop relatively more market earning power—more market-rewarded human
> capital—than they would have in past decades.

This one is very interesting! Women are protecting themselves from bad
marriage deals by getting work that pays more, thus increasing their value.
Scandinavian countries are some of the most progressive in the world (equal
pay with gender etc). Yet there is a increasing amount of divorces and
children born out of wedlock in these countries.

[http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Marriages_and_births_in_Sweden)

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zxcmx
The argument falls flat for me due to the assumption that one only
participates in the "marriage market" OR the "sex market".

Seems a false dichotomy, not backed by data,and the rest of the argument
depends on it.

~~~
brad0
I would say that people mostly participate in the sex market until they find
someone they’re willing to settle down with.

If you were seeing someone who you considered “marriage material” you wouldn’t
be on the sex market. Until that time happened I can’t see why you wouldn’t
participate in the sex market.

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brad0
I'm only just into the introduction and I am very engaged. The intro brings up
some very interesting arguments.

\- Contraception is damaging to society

\- Massive redistribution of wealth and power to men

\- Suggestions that taxing men and subsidising women and children will fix it

I'll update this as I read through the article.

> Their graph, below, shows that, for example, the percentage of Americans
> married at age 30 fell from roughly 85 percent in 1960 to roughly 60 percent
> in 2000. Assuming that sexual activity has not decreased over the same
> period (clearly a safe assumption), this implies increased participation in
> the sex market over the same period.

I think this may be a flawed statement. Millenials are having less sex than
previous generations: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-
issues/there-isn...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/there-
isnt-really-anything-magical-about-it-why-more-millennials-are-putting-off-
sex/2016/08/02/e7b73d6e-37f4-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html?utm_term=.bd7fc81479b0)

> It may be biologically inevitable that relatively more men will populate the
> sex market and relatively more women will populate the marriage market.

It's a little crude but biologically we're built that way.

> The average age at which men exit the sex market and enter the marriage
> market is higher than the average age at which women make the same decision.

I was going to make the argument that it's normally just a couple of years
but...

> This, in turn, means that at each point in time, more men will inhabit the
> sex market than women. Correspondingly, more women will inhabit the marriage
> market than men.

So there's an imbalance between the two markets. I agree with this - take a
look at Tinder or any other hook up style app. Heaps of men, comparatively
less women. The result is women getting hundreds of Matches a day where most
guys will be lucky to get one.

Oh and vice versa. Women trying to find a man that is marriage material is as
scarce as men trying to find a casual sexual partner.

Actually the marriage market even more scarce than the sexual market. Once a
man is taken off the market through marriage then the man pool becomes even
smaller, making the ratio even worse!

I'll continue making more points in other posts.

------
grzm
(2010)

