according to separate research by University of Pennsylvania economist Jeremy Greenwood and by UCLA sociologists Christine Schwartz and Robert Mare, educational intermarriage is less common today than at any point over the past half century.
The drum he is beating (Tyler Cowen has a link to a different piece by Birger) is that within a demographic segment, ratios of females to males matter. If you define the segment as “young, college-educated,” the outlook for women looks bleak, because of the high ratio of females to males in that segment.
Would it be reasonable to infer that in the segment “young, not college-educated” that there are more men than women? Why aren’t women in that segment enjoying lots of marriage prospects?
Perhaps many males in that segment do not offer much in terms of income.
What is new here? In terms of class/education intermarrying, it was the 1950 – 1990s (with the Post War changes) that was the historical oddball not today marriage market.
1) Why are calling it so much the hookup culture? I don’t see millenials have more hookups than Generations X or the Boomers but it is happening later in life. (In reality teenage sex is decreasing and the hookups are early 20s.) The reality is later marriage (28 – 30) is the optimal time to marry and people are making better choices.
2) Since the divorce rate hit its high point in later 1970s, maybe higher intermarrying was not a good thing.
3) A lot of the old marriage rules were protected by a defined sexual discrimination in the workforce.
Kling:
“Perhaps many males in that segment do not offer much in terms of income.”
Perhaps they do not offer much -period, full stop.
That doesn’t mean the intrepid female can not dig “something” out, and make something of the male. Has been done, y’know.
Perhaps men should embrace female-dominated fields. And I know for a fact some male dominated majors should be made easier.
Don’t discount single-motherhood. Women without a college education can have a keep their children much more easily because of the programs available. And men, who already are relatively indifferent to having children compared to women, are in general averse to raising and providing for other men’s children. And women being more and more overweight and lower income levels doesn’t help either.
I have no theory on what is going on but whenever we meet someone from our kid’s school or anything we try strenuously to remember our policy of never making any assumptions about the family arrangements. What we used to worry about was that mom might be grandma or the kid adopted. Now we don’t even try to understand the relationships.
Oh boy, and this is in spite of a marriage penalty/bonus that discourages marriage of high-income pairs and rewards marriages of “disparates”. My take away: the marriage tax penalty is not only NOT going away, but it will be stiffened.