Decoding Love - Andrew Trees [48]
And age is not the only criteria that feminism has influenced. As I’ve discussed, men and woman also pay attention to things like education, income, and professional status. So, men tend to marry women who are younger, make less money, have less education, and are lower on the corporate ladder (there are many stories of male bosses marrying their secretaries, but I have yet to hear one about the female boss who married a male secretary). This is why the dating scene is not necessarily the friendliest place for successful, single women in their thirties or forties—and why that ridiculous terrorism statistic gained such widespread currency.
An added twist worsens this demographic trend for older women—age preferences do not remain stable. As men grow older, they are no longer satisfied with a woman only two to three years younger. They want a woman even younger. According to statistics taken from personal ads in newspapers, men in their thirties want a woman roughly five years younger, while men in their fifties want a woman ten to twenty years younger. Marriage statistics bear this out. For first marriages, American grooms are roughly three years older. By their second marriage, that number climbs to five years, and by third marriages men are on average eight years older.
What all this means is that the gains of feminism in the workplace are a double-edged sword. Although women are rising to ever-greater positions of power in corporations around the country, they are often putting their romantic lives on hold to do so.
Feminism has empowered women, but it has left them with a stark choice: improve their career prospects or improve their marriage prospects. If women really want the best partner, they should look for him when their stock is highest, while they are in their twenties. If enough women do this, there will also be fewer single women in their thirties, which would improve the dating situation for those women as well. Of course, early marriage comes with a career cost, particularly if marriage also leads to motherhood. One ingenious economist has discovered that a woman in her twenties will increase her lifetime earnings by 10 percent if she delays the birth of her child by a year. That’s lifetime earnings, not a 10 percent increase for one year but a 10 percent increase (on average) each and every year for the rest of her life, just for waiting an additional year to have a child. It’s enough to make a Chia pet start to seem like a plausible alternative to children.
I consider myself a feminist, and I am certainly not trying to argue that women shouldn’t pursue a career if that is what they want to do. But I don’t think it serves anyone’s interest to deny that a woman’s career carries a romantic cost, particularly if her career delays her interest in marriage. If women can be honest with themselves about that cost from the start, then it may alleviate some of the angst that often afflicts so many single women in their thirties and forties.
None of this means that older women are doomed. These are only averages, and if averages told the whole story, we would all have 1.86 children. There are plenty of couples among whom the woman is the same age or older. But it does help to be aware of these preferences because when they are multiplied over entire populations, they can have enormous consequences. That’s why the loudest complaints about dating usually are heard in large cities where these imbalances can be felt more powerfully (you could also argue that living in a large city is bad for a couple, regardless of any other factors. According to one study, proximity to many potential partners has a powerful effect on marriage and leads to more divorce even for couples who consider themselves happy).
Call it the multiplying power of small preferences. I live in New York City, which is one of those places where the numbers are particularly hard on women. In Manhattan and the outer boroughs, there are roughly ninety men for every one hundred women. That ratio may not sound that