Marriage is down because bottom-half women don't have to settle for losers

All this sounds very familiar.

Here are the main points I want to highlight, which I’ve been making for more than a decade at this point. (Shoutout to Liz Plank and Erin Ryan, who I’ve been reading even longer):

1. It’s women, not men, who are saying no to dating and marriage (and, increasingly, kids)

2. It’s bottom-half women who are saying no to bottom-half men.

3. Bottom-half women gained the ability to say no to marriage and kids at the same time that marriage to bottom-half men became a worse deal because their incomes stagnated but they didn’t step up their other contributions (housework, childcare, being fun to be around) enough to make up for the loss.

4. If you want to boost marriage and fertility rates, make bottom-half men more attractive as spouses. Stop blaming women for making self-interested, rational decisions.

5. Between shifts in labor demand favoring women and the rise of AI labor displacement, saving marriage will almost certainly require moving away from the male breadwinner model.

Further reading (from moi):

Not all men (are equally likely to be single)

·

August 31, 2022

Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I use evidence and stories to interrogate existing power structures to propose better ways of relating. To support my work, buy a guide, buy a subscription, or just share this post!