> On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, the NYT was quoted
>
> > March 15, 2006/New York TIMES
> >
> > Op-Ed Contributor
> > Working It Out
> > By CLAUDIA GOLDIN
> >
> > Cambridge, Mass.
> >
> > HIGHLY educated women are getting a bum rap from the press. There
> has
> > recently been a spate of news and opinion articles telling us that
> > these women, especially graduates of the best universities and
> > professional schools, are "opting out" in record numbers,
> choosing the
> > comforts of home and family over careers.
> >
> > And because there are now 1.33 women graduating from college for
> every
> > man, the best and brightest women will either have to "marry
> down" or,
> > more likely, we are told, remain single.
>
> This article marshalls a lot of evidence against the idea that
> women are opting out of careers or staying single. But it doesn't
> address at all the idea that they are marrying down -- which would
> seem mathematically inescapable if the 1.33 figure is correct, and
> on the face of it, seemingly a significant change. Has anyone seen
> this discussed anywhere else?
Between 1980 and 2000, hypergamy clearly declined, and hypogamy increased a little, to the point that they are now running neck and neck, but an increase in hypogamy is overshadowed by a really big rise in marriage of educational equals, now decidedly the most common type of marriage:
<blockquote>Table 17 Percent of Marriages by Type:
Hypogamous (Husband’s Education < Wife’s Education) Same (Husband’s Education = Wife’s Education) Hypergamous (Husband’s Education > Wife’s Education)
Wives Age 40-44
1980 1990 2000 Hypogamous 26 25 27 Same 36 39 42 Hypergamous 38 36 31
Husbands Age 40-44 Hypogamous 24 23 28 Same 36 39 42 Hypergamous 38 37 30
(Elaina Rose, "Education and Hypergamy in Marriage Markets," Center for Research on Families, Working Paper No. 2004-01, March 2004, p. 44 <http://depts.washington.edu/crfam/WorkingPapers/CRF% 202004-01_Rose.pdf>)</blockquote>
The biggest marriage story missing from the media is probably not that women have found education increasingly less of an obstacle to marriage and motherhood, important as it is, but that marriage rates declined sharply for the less educated, especially for the least educated (and presumably poorest) men: "the declining economic prospects of men at the bottom of the education distribution have rendered many below the threshold of marriagiability. The likelihood of a 40-44 year old man with 11 years of education being married fell by over 20 percentage points over the 20-year period, a greater decline than that for women of the same education level" (Rose, p. 16).
The thing is that women don't mind marrying down, but many women don't want to get married to men who fall below the minimum marriageability threshold they set for men, and yet neoliberal capitalism pushes many men below that threshold.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>