[jariel]

Quote:

Women are no longer waiting for their prince charming to come and save them. After a recent study that was conducted, it appears women now have more autonomy and are more likely to marry for love than for financial stability due to the fact that they are financially independent themselves.

So does that make it more likely for individuals to find true love?

The Daily Mail reports that studies say women who are in their late twenties and early thirties are marrying down or “beneath themselves” and opting for men who are in a lower economic social class. As a result, the study which was done by the Institute for Public Policy Research, more women are marrying for love rather than money these days.

For the first time more women are “marrying down” than “up.” The study concludes that 28 percent of women born between 1976 and 1981 decided to marry men who had less education and were less wealthy than them. Around twenty years earlier in 1958 the number was 23 percent.

The number drastically decreased for women who were born from 1976 and 1981. Only 16 percent of these women “married up,” while more than half, 56 percent, married someone who was of the same social economic class.

Conversely, 39 percent of women married a man of the same class, with 38 percent “marrying up” in 1958.

Age has become less of an issue with “boy toys.” They were a thing of the nineties and by the time the noughties came around age difference barely mattered.

Richard Darlington from the IPPR explains, “Women are still marrying older men from the same social class as themselves, but for the first time, the proportion marrying down is higher than the proportion marrying up, and one in five women are now marrying men who are seven or more years older than them.”

Interestingly, official numbers that were released last week show that 52 percent of women who were 17-30 achieved higher education compared to 42 percent of men.

http://www.longislandpress.com/2012/04/0...ying-down/

[MikeCF]

Funny, because it should say that men who are marrying old broads are the ones marrying down.

[Kitsune]

I guess the data is true, but the interpretation is out there. Women are hypergamous and because the economy is fucked, they're going after guys with other values than monetary ones.

Men are marrying down also because most women nowadays can't cook, clean, be nice, stop texting for more than 2 minutes at a time, and all the other things their mothers and grandmothers all the way back into history could do.

[Vaquero]

We need pics to go with these stories to see just which women are "marrying down". I would guess it's the chicks that are financially secure but are the least desirable and who have the least options due to looks or other life circumstances (kids) that are marrying down.

[Basil Ransom]

This surprises me a little. But I agree with Vaquero - who exactly are these broads marrying down? I'm guessing they're older, so their options are diminished. The age of first marriage overall has increased significantly.



For America, the average at first marriage for the first cohort was 22 (1958+22 = 1980, where the median age at first marriage was 22). For the second cohort, the one where more women are supposedly marrying down, the age at first marriage was 25 (estimated year ~2003).



Unfortunately, this one looks like it's for both sexes. Let's just assume that it's accurate for each gender, which it isn't, but it's close enough. But check out the 30+ categories. For the 30-34 year olds, the proportion of singles (read: cougars) quadrupled, from 9% to 35%. For the 35-39 category, it tripled, going from 7% to 23%.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ealed.html

They're also only talking about a 5 percentage point increase in the number of women marrying down, which isn't huge. The second graph here is probably more pertinent. A big increase in the number of cougars, even if they're only 10-20% of women, could be responsible for this change we're seeing.

As everyone else has said, marrying 'down' isn't just about money. What about class, occupational status, education, looks, confidence?

(04-10-2012 05:45 AM)Kitsune Wrote:  

Men are marrying down also because most women nowadays can't cook, clean, be nice, stop texting for more than 2 minutes at a time, and all the other things their mothers and grandmothers all the way back into history could do.

Yeah, but I don't see how poor natives are any better. Foreign girls, sure.