A book called “Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game” by Jon Birger was recently reviewed in The Guardian.
The book tackles the issue of the rise in female graduates in Western nations, who are struggling to meet and marry like-minded men with a similar education.
Birger argues very convincingly that this difficulty is due to the fact that many more women than men attend university, and an unintended consequence is that “if an educated woman wants to form a long-term partnership with a man of similar education, the numbers are stacked against her”.
Birger highlights research which shows that female graduates want to date and marry men with similar educational backgrounds, and this, he says, is creating a situation “whereby women are competing for a small pool of men, and this gives way too much leverage to those college-educated men. It encourages those men to be overly choosy and to delay settling down.”
An interesting interview with a lady named Cat, a recent female graduate, who Birger also interviewed, featured in the Guardian article. Cat spoke of her circle of female friends and said “only one of them has a boyfriend and [the others are] all really attractive, fun girls, clever, educated, and can’t find a boyfriend”. Cat wondered if dating apps such as Tinder may be to blame as it creates a situation “where everyone’s thinking there’s something better around the corner”. Birger argues that for girls like Cat, “maybe because there is more choice of girls than there ever was…it’s more difficult to find a guy because the pool is smaller.”
Usually most discussions, debates, and articles on the issue of unmarried female graduates tends to focus on African American women; Birger’s book deals with mainly Caucasian women in Western nations like the USA and the UK. To date, I have not seen any such articles about the marriage crisis in Indian, Muslim, or Jewish communities in Western countries – and perhaps it’s because those communities tend to be more socially conservative despite the fact that they may vote for leftist, liberal political parties – this issue appears to be a problem suffered by mainly white, black, and biracial women.
Oprah Winfrey highlighted research which showed that up to 70 per cent of black American female graduates are unmarried, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if the rates for black British women are similar.
In terms of black American women, Oprah argued that part of the problem was the fact that black women prefer to marry black men. However, the high rates of incarceration for black men, and the fact that black women disproportionately outperform black men educationally, mean that the numbers are stacked against them, and more of them should embrace interracial dating.
Rather interestingly, Birger suggests that more women should follow the example of black American women and marry men who are blue collar workers and working class. He says: “I predict that we will see more pairings [of] college-educated women and working-class guys. I refer to these as mixed-collar marriages. You see it much more in the African American community, where the gender disparity in college education is more extreme – you certainly see more educated women married to working-class guys.”
Birger’s advice to marry and date blue collar working class men is interesting given that radical third wave feminists have done so much to harm the prospects of working class men, and routinely support policies that damage the employment opportunities of working class men, such as mass immigration.
Feminists tend to support corporatist policies like open borders, the feminisation of the educational system, and the European Union. Sovereignty and the supremacy of the nation state are good for blue collar and working class men. Corporatism and European Union-style bureaucracy don’t really affect the small pool of male graduates, but are extremely harmful to blue collar working class men.
Plumbers, electricians, and engineers can earn good salaries. However, mass immigration drives down their wages and also make it difficult for entrepreneurial blue collar workers to set up and run successful small businesses.
Mass immigration affects the prospects of blue collar working class men much more than male graduates. However, not enough women have woken up to the fact that the promoters of radical third wave feminism who champion open borders tend to be privileged upper middle class, leftist, and fairly well connected and well off women who are disconnected from the challenges faced by most women.
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson has pointed out that while marriage rates are dropping off for working class and middle class, rates of marriage are actually increasing for the upper middle class, who also tend to marry those with similar financial prospects.
I’m surprised that the Guardian reviewed the book as it is a strong promoter, and supporter, of the radical feminist and metropolitan liberal agenda.
A number of the structural problems female graduates are facing in the marriage market are due to the corrosive effect of radical third wave feminism, and so-called cultural marxism/relativism. The feminists peddled the notion that women could have it all, but the real world is far more challenging and complex.
