Link. Full text below.
Ahhh, Jenna Price – Fairfax in-house feminist writer. Not a man-hater per se, but from the couple of her articles I have read, has the uncanny ability to give genuine facts and figures, then hopelessly misinterpret them due to feminist bias. Thinks she works harder than her grandmother. Shame on her.
Tl;dr – women are marrying down, according to some (very dubious) stats she found, so decides this is one more way men benefit from marriage, and “now is a good time for men to become feminists”. <sigh> Surprisingly, comments are allowed on this article.
Hot news: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband.
And that’s precisely what new research from the US tells us. Women are marrying down. It’s as if the Bennets in Pride and Prejudice suddenly became boys in need of wealthy, powerful brides.
But the outcome for those wealthy, powerful and clever brides isn’t too sunny. If you thought the education of your daughters was a silver bullet, I have sad tidings. It’s just possible their degrees and financial success will lead to a decline in their standard of living, at least in the short-term.
The reason? Women are now far more likely to be well-educated and earn more, but not the blokes with whom they mate. Yes, women are marrying down more than ever before. For men, it’s hypergamy, the concept of marrying above your station. Women are pitching their sights a lot lower, hypogamy. Both of these risk the long-term stability of relationships and the answer is monogamy. Joke. It’s actually homogamy. More about that later.
In just a couple of decades you can see a dramatic reversal of the trends in who we choose to marry.
In the 1990s, about 26 per cent of women married down and 37 per cent of women married up. But in 2010 the numbers changed markedly. In these most recent figures, 35 per cent of women marry down and 27 per cent of women marry up.
For men in the 1990s, 38 per cent married down and only 25 per cent married up. In the latest figures 35 per cent marry up and 28 per cent marry down.
Rae Cooper, associate professor in work and organisational studies at the University of Sydney Business School, is devastated by the results.
“Australia is one of the best performers in the OECD for the education of women and girls and indicators such as the persistent and large gender pay and the dominance of men in management roles, suggest that their investment is not paying off in the labour market,” she says.
Although the investment is certainly paying off for the blokes they marry. This evidence counters a long-held view that men are ATMs. As Kim puts it, married women’s progress in education and personal earnings has led to greater improvement in the family standard of living for married men than for women.
The findings surprised him but he has advice for men seeking brides.
“Now it’s a good time for men to be feminists … marriage is becoming increasingly more important for men, it’s to their financial benefit,” he says. “Now men can get the benefit of women’s higher education and labour participation.”
He says men should recognise their quality of life is not dependent on their own incomes. That’s because more women are financially supporting the family unit. Family incomes have increased because of the wife’s income while the personal income for less-educated men has decreased over time. And as a result, women’s standard of living has decreased.
The pain won’t last long, predicts Kim, who says that as more women participate in the labour market there will be a shift.
“This will balance the power relationship in marriage and it will become a more equal institution.”
Exciting – if distant – news for those Australians still doing all the household labour as well as earning the bulk of the household income.
And as we negotiate these new relationships, ANU demographer Liz Allen has some advice. She’s surveyed the Australian literature to confirm these patterns are also occurring here and that the road to long-lasting relationships is all about homogamy – where money and education in partners are pretty much equal.
“We will need to see a negotiation around values because the differences can cause conflict,” she says. “Whenever there is a union of two people there is a transfer of benefits and the one which we see now benefits men over women.”
Monk 2 years, 5 months ago.
