Wednesday, August 7, 2002
Is marriage becoming less and less desirable?
A story released today by ABC News reports that women now comprise 57 percent of all college graduates in the United States. Among Hispanics, the gender gap is even greater — only 40 percent of college graduates are male. Among blacks, two women earn bachelor's degrees for every man.
Some demographers and labor studies experts fear this trend might affect for the mating game. American men are becoming less literate, less ambitious, less responsible, and less employable than women, they say. This can only mean bad things, the argument goes, for high-achieving women who want husbands who, say, contribute to society, hold their own in conversation and pay their own way.
Andrew Sum, an economist with the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, calls this effect the "marriage squeeze."
"The choices for younger women will be more constrained than they were 20 years ago," he said. "This is a serious economic and cultural problem. Men are less mature today than they were 20 years ago. Not everyone will agree with me, but the evidence supports that."
Sum's research shows that an average of 62 percent of women in Massachusetts' large central and inner cities graduate from high school and enroll in college, compared to 48 percent of men. His data also reflect the education gender gap's impact on marriage, he said. An estimated 59 percent of men with only high school diplomas were married compared to 75 percent of men with Master's degrees or better, Sum said.
The academic gender gap shows no sign of abating, which means women may have to start waiting even longer to marry, or they may have to consider "marrying down."
Kathleen Gerson, a New York University sociologist studying work and family attitudes of the 18-to-30 crowd, pooh-poohs the notion that less educated men herald the apocalypse for heterosexual couples.
"When men outnumbered women [in college], it didn't seem like a social crisis," she said.
If women are less dependent on men for financial support, couples can make more honest decisions about being together, said Stephanie Coontz, a family researcher and co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families.
"It's not a sign of disaster, but a sign that people are able to develop more true free choice and are willing to do so," she said. "This is a good example of the fact that marriage is more of a choice than it's ever been."
In fact, much research shows that women, just like men, are more likely to be married if they have greater educational attainment and more earning power, says Scott Coltrane, a senior scholar with the Center on Contemporary Families.
Economic equality also translates to more equality in marriage, Coltrane said. "When women have more resources, couples tend to make decisions that end up sharing more," he said.
Despite these arguments, Sum sticks to his theory that less educated men comprise a social, economic and marital drain. And, he said, if you ask young women, they'd back him up.
"Many women perceive this problem to be real," he said. "It is not our imagination."
