The Mating Crisis Among Educated Women

&gt; They end up being forced to compete for the limited pool of educated men not just with their more numerous educated rivals, but also with less educated women whom men find desirable on other dimensions.<p>Considering that we want to eliminate any gaps between the genders, why are educated women limited to educated men of their own ages? Why not increase the pool like men do: go for more younger, possibly less educated men (as the article implies for men)?<p>&gt; As men age, they desire women who are increasingly younger than they are. Intelligent, educated women may go for a less accomplished partner for a casual fling, but for a committed partner they typically want mates their own age or a few years older, and at least as educated and career-driven.<p>If men can increase their pool size, why not women?

I&#x27;ve noticed the preferences among my male and female friends diverging over time. In college, everyone seemed to want the same thing -- a partner that was both successful and attractive. But now as we make it to our late twenties, I noticed that they &quot;settle&quot; differently. My female friends increasingly prefer an older guy with a great career and my male friends a younger woman who is less accomplished than they were at their age. They both still say they want the same thing -- and I totally buy it -- but it is hard to find the perfect person so sacrifices tend to be made.<p>I have definitely noticed the happiest people I know, in terms of romance, found their life partner in college.

I&#x27;m not trying to incite a flamewar here, and this will probably be downvoted to death.<p>Well, the argument here should be:<p>Men don&#x27;t find education and accomplishment as attractive as women do - they find youth and beauty important also.<p>Therefore, in order to attract a mate, logically women should try to attract a mate when they&#x27;re younger, and try to improve the way they look. They should not be trying to get more educated or accomplish more in their careers.<p>They can of course do whatever they want, but I have very little sympathy for people who recognize how reality is and don&#x27;t try to act in ways that will optimize the probability of the outcome they want.

Is this a problem that needs to be solved, though?<p>I see a dichotomy here. On one hand, we would like to have more women in the &quot;educated&quot; and therefore, high-income workforce. This, in turn, causes imbalance in the dating market and may force the women in the high-income bracket to make a concession(by lowering their standards, etc). On the other, we can go back to the model where men dominate the high-income workforce and many women can &quot;marry up&quot; when they&#x27;re younger. I would pick the former than the latter any day. Equality of opportunity trumps the equality of results in my world.<p>Also, beyond a certain point, money just doesn&#x27;t make the other person more attractive. I would rather date a caring jobless younger woman than an abusive doctor with several degrees. I make enough to pursue my dreams and leisures. Articles like this actually seem very insensitive for the men of my situation(previously poor, now making comfortably but didn&#x27;t date much in 20s), as it purports that I, as a man in dating market, is worth as much as the amount of money I make. I hope that&#x27;s not case for most people.<p>Think about it. This is a &quot;crisis&quot; because there aren&#x27;t high-earning men that these high-earning women would allow themselves to date? It doesn&#x27;t necessarily trigger schadenfreude to me, if not a profound sadness due to a nature of the &quot;problem&quot;. As a single man of early thirties, this sort of article horrifies and saddens me. You need to find your own happiness and maybe it shouldn&#x27;t depend on other people.<p>Jon Birger&#x27;s Date-onomics(2015) discusses this phenomenon[1] pretty astutely, if you&#x27;re interested in reading further data.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Date-onomics-Dating-Became-Lopsided-Numbers&#x2F;dp&#x2F;076118208X" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Date-onomics-Dating-Became-Lopsided-N...</a>

&gt; But for accomplished women who successfully traverse the waters of a mating pool unfairly stacked against them, mating triumph at the individual level typically takes precedence over loftier goals of reducing societal-level inequality when the two come into conflict.<p>It&#x27;s wrong to characterize the pool as &quot;unfairly&quot; stacked against them; they could choose to date men with lower incomes or less education.

Not the usual sort of discussion I expect to see on Edge but welcome nonetheless. Fertility services, reproductive tech is very hot right now. With women who heed the countdown of their biological clocks electing to freeze their eggs at $50K, it could also be considered a growth sector. So why not provide the spectrum of services a single professional would need to raise a family. From quality genetically screened gamete seed banks. Making it as easy to order 23 chromosomes as you would pick out a new laptop on Newegg. To generous paid maternity care and leave. Nanny, lactation consulting, on-call pediatrics, daycare. As well as transportation, grocery delivery, nursery installation and much more.<p>Of course all of this is readily available via bespoke services for those that can afford it. So how to we extend all the necessary services to a middle class single professional woman?<p>If it truly is a crisis that birth rates are falling in the developed world. And restricted immigration results in further population skew. Then taxpayers must begin the debate on subsidizing reproductive and childcare services. Because traditional &quot;nudge&quot; messaging and policy seems to neglect where organic demand lies: having children and career, without the necessity or social norm of marriage.

Better tools to connect women and men could have a major impact and increase the chances that couples connect with each other. Tinder and other dating sites are absolute shit (plenty of literature on their problems for both men and women out there) and in person interactions are becoming more rare. Improving these tools might help some of the people who would otherwise not connect or find suitable mates to do so, though it can only address the problem partially.

This problem is very evident amongst single female friends who are just out of medical residency. The ones that are married mostly met their spouses in undergrad but the others are having a lot of trouble finding men of similar education level.

Where I think this will go is pretty easy, as it happens already among the less-educated.<p>Women will select a mate based more on looks than money, have a kid or two, then divorce him (aka &quot;starter marriages&quot;.) Child support from the male will probably not matter for women who make enough money, but might still be a useful tool to keep the ex-hubby in line.<p>This is probably a simpler, if more cynical, means than freezing ova for the &quot;perfect&quot; man to fertilize.<p>And while men at the tippy-top might take a pass on divorcees with kids, for most men beyond a certain age, it&#x27;s a fact of life, and frankly, we have decades of cultural brain-washing that makes such attitudes seem sexist.

My experience trying to date women in physics and comp sci says this is mostly a crisis amongst non stem women.

Interestingly no discussion of what must be a similar crisis among less-educated men.

I wonder if it is any different in other countries with better health coverage and more family friendly policies.

You mean it is ok to be biologically inspired for your mating choices? Who knew?

Hardly a crisis...

Who says women have to date men?

Needs citations

Anyone else think this article was going to be about chess?<p>Man HN has my mind so warped I thought this article was going to be about women and chess.

I&#x27;m impressed HN — not a single mention yet of hypergamy, SMV or Red Pill theory!<p>(and now I&#x27;ve gone and ruined it)

Why is the onus of lowering their standards being pushed on educated women? One of the issues the author states is that men increasingly go for younger women instead of ones their own age. Why do we value youth and beauty instead of education and accomplishments?