What percentage of women go to college? I’m guessing the non-college educated men will have a perfectly adequate pool of women to choose from, and vice versa.
Another story about dangerous males? Are there ever positive stories about men in general these days. This has a very self-fulfilling prophecy feel to it…
Does that mean college educated men would have an easier time dating college educated women? 
Yes, and this contributes to hookup culture. The Economist wrote about exactly this over 10 years ago, as relating to the dearth of available black men:
Interestingly, this suggests that the most supportive colleges for women are those that are predominantly men, such as Georgia Tech, where the men have to compete for the women.
Lots of very of very interesting posts since I last visited. I was thinking about @tarator’s idea about the lack of role models. I wonder if the data of college bound young males correlates with the rise in single parent households. Maybe young girls are not as affected as young boys by being raised without a father. I’ll have to dig a little more when I have a minute but would love your feedback.
As one older alumna of Georgia Tech (or perhaps another engineering-heavy school) described the social opportunities at that school, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” (A little tongue-in-cheek humor.)
This is a complex topic with many possible/probable causes that I have talked about some on the “CC Race Thread” in the past so I will leave my previous comments as my personal interpretation.
My wife has always told me that absence of a father leads to increased sexual promiscuity in adolescent girls. I’m sure that there were studies she had read about.
I’ve read about those studies too. I was thinking more in regards to boys/young men.
I have admittedly not read that thread but will do. Thank you.
The book, Date-onomics, by Jon Birger covers a lot of the ground above. It is specifically about the imbalance of men and women in college, and how it affects dating, and marriage. He is a financial and stats writer, btw, not a self help author, and approaches things from a numbers angle.
This is what my comment was referring to; and that young girls are not unaffected by the absence of a father in the home.
Not as affected and unaffected are two different entities. But I get your point.
Seem to see a lot of discussions in which is something isn’t the only cause, its dismissed as being a cause at all. Like so many issues in life, issues are complicated as are causes. But there seems to be a focus on finding one universal cause and addressing that as if it will address the issue. Not only won’t it (because its more complicated than that) it may make things worse.
To the extent the result of the discuss of the issue is to reduce the push for college for all/more, I think it will be a good thing. But I am not expecting that to be a result of this.
Is there any irony in the idea that just like some women went to college to get Mrs. degrees, some men could be pushed to college so they can get married? LOL
This makes all my hairs stand on end. In twitterverse, these kind of guys are mockingly referred to as incels, which was a new word to me, meaning involuntarily celibate. Yeah, they’re going to be angry and cast around for someone to blame. But they’ll never blame themselves.
Any idea if the figures you cited limited to male/female attendance for American applicants or are these total applicants?
Because if they’re total applicants, the American male/female attendance discrepancy will be even greater? I saw the clip on CNN where they interviewed Scott Galloway in this. Definitely interesting and disturbing.
I mentioned a related point upthread, but it was lots of posts ago, so: Up to 50ish years ago, it was the norm for women to marry (include here marriage-like relationships) men with higher educational attainment, simply because demographics. Now we’re entering a period in which it will have to be the norm for women to marry men with lower educational attainment, again because demographics.
Scott Galloway’s clickbaity “broke and alone male” line is based on an assumption that pair-bonding preferences aren’t subject to change, ever. That is silly, to put it mildly. I mean, not saying that there isn’t social strain involved in demographic change, but human societal norms adapt to human demographic realities, not the other way around.
Things can change. But bigger picture, I think you’re as likely to see more women elect to remain single and/or childless than you are to see them marrying someone of lower educational/financial status. Of my friend circle (40s college educated with good careers/prospects), 100% of the men are/have been married. 90% of them have 1 or 2 kids. 10% of the women (same education/professional status) are single. Another 5% are on their first marriages to divorced/widowed professional men who are either childless or who have older kids.
I think many professional women see having kids as detrimental to their careers and certain lifestyle “freedoms”. And overall, they aren’t wrong.
There’s another issue too: we have become and are increasingly more so becoming geographically sorted by education. Large metros with good job prospects are attracting highly educated transplants. So there is a shortage at the metro level. And when you drill down even further, there is sorting at the neighborhood/metro submarket level too. If you’re living in an urban neighborhood where 80% of your age cohort is college educated surrounded by neighborhoods that are the same engaged in social activities where you’re surrounded by college educated people working at an employer that requires a college degree, where are you meeting these non-college educated men?
At my old firm, 10 of the 30 women I worked with 15 years ago are still single. All but 1 of the men are m/we’re married. The women are now all 39-50. Median age roughly 45. They’re straight. They’ve dated men. I don’t think they’re ridiculously picky. They are surrounded by two types of men: professional/upper middle class or low working class/urban poor with maybe a HS degree/GED. There aren’t many middle class guys who lead a trade crew/owning a trade business with some technical post grad certifications living near them. They’re all much further out from the city center. And those are the men without college degrees they are most likely to consider.
Edit: and I do think politics plays a role in this. When there was a shortage of college educated women, the role of a woman was to support the breadwinner. Stay quiet on political matters. It wasn’t so long ago that women could only open a checking account with the permission of her husband. College educated women skew liberal. Non-college educated men skew conservative. There are certain fundamental disagreements about the world between these two groups overall. For a lot of women with financial independence and fulfilling lives, they’d rather be single than to deal with those sorts of relationship tensions.
They call themselves “incels.”
This is exactly what I have seen in my own circle of educated African-American friends. ~90% of the educated African-American males (most mid-40’s) among my Facebook Friends have been married or were married while about 50-60% of the educated African-American females in that same demographic have ever been married. It will be interesting to see if the continuing gender demographic changes affect our current societal norms.
Oh ok, like I said it was a new term to me. lol
That’s a self-pitying self-slur if I’ve ever heard one.