More women are marrying men who earn less than they do
May 20th, 2010
Times they are a changing… New research in America confirms what some of us have been saying for years: nowadays, gender roles are changing and it’s far more socially acceptable for the woman to be the better educated, high earner in a relationship.
This trend is apparently most common among educated black women.
Relationship experts quoted in the original article revealing this research mused that the recession may have contributed to this situation in some way, as many jobs were lost. I’m guessing the assumption here is that men who would otherwise be employed in high earning jobs are now either unemployed or have had to take on lower paying jobs instead of their usual power executive ones? Or maybe that the men somehow lost their jobs and the women miraculously didn’t and now it’s suddenly acceptable for women to earn more than the men?
I’d rather see it as a gradual move from the dated view of the man as the high earner and also, perhaps, from the dated notion that a University education and high paying jobs are the only measures of intelligence and worth.
I think what we can learn from this is that relationships can often work even for people with different social backgrounds and formal education levels. As long as people have other things in common that are important to them and are not hung up over who makes what, things can work out just as well.
You can read the full article about this research here.
Related posts:
- When dating online, women prefer slightly overweight men
- Online dating for older women
- Women rule the net! (In the UK)
- What are the top dating and relationship deal breakers for men and women?
- Sexbots for women – no longer pure fantasy. Apparently
Entry Filed under: Relationships and dating
2 Comments Add your own
1. JIll Rhodes-Harvey | June 26th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
This is article is very general, as it is proven that most long term-couples have a very similar social, family background, educational level, and certainly earning capacity. Most people seek someone who they can relate to, who has the same aspirational goals and values. Having researched this as I’m a dating consultant and counsellor,I know females who have achieved success, are well educated, university degree, been privately educated for a lot of them, and earning over 70K would not entertain marrying a man who was earning 30K, or didn’t have a very similar background. This is NOT about judging someone by the salary alone as most people would immediately pick on, as that seems the most obvious cynics route – but more about be what you seek. If a female becomes a top barrister, is driven, successful and earns 90K a year, she is not going marry a fireman (as an example) earning 35K a year, not only do their salaries split them,but more importantly, which is what most people miss, they don’t have any thing in common long-term. Backgrounds, education, schooling, type of friends, lifestyle aspirations.
Long term relationships are difficult enough once the honeymoon period passes, add to this huge differences as above, and these issues tend to erode the foundations of a relationship very quickly.
It’s a delightful thought that none of these things matter where love is concerned, but in reality they do.
2. Mark | December 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 am
Men are usually willing to marry-down. They want love and affection. Women only open themselves up to the possibility of love and affection AFTER a she finds out what he does for a living. Men are far less superficial than women.
Of course women (above) call this the “cynic route” because they have been trained to regurgitate these programmed responses. Any man who brings up this issue is labeled bitter, sex-starved and low on finances. Ad-hominem attacks are usually done when someone either has no rebuttal or when someone hits a little too close to home with their generalization.
The number of single women is on the rise because the number of men who meet or exceed their education and income is declining.
Sorry ladies. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. Don’t blame men for your loneliness; blame your unrealistic expectations. Either be happy being single or emulate a males expectations.
Leave a Comment
Please be nice! Don't try to post comments just to plug your own website or service. Those won't get published on here, so you'd be wasting your time anyway.Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed