> To me, looking at the demographic data, it doesn’t seem that there is a widespread aversion to forming serious relationships [across educational lines] – there are more and more relationships in which women have more education than their male partners.”
> She doesn’t see large numbers of educated women holding out for an educated partner, and remaining unhappily single, in other words.
In the Pew piece linked from there,
> The primary reason for the decline in the share of married couples with similar education levels is that marriages between spouses with high school or less than high school education are much less common these days — the share is down from 74% of all marriages in 1960 to 24% in 2012. In addition, adults with high school or less education are much less likely to marry. The marriage rate among this group plummeted —from 72% in 1960 to 46% in 2012.
> Just the opposite has occurred among college graduates. The share of couples in which both spouses have a college degree has risen steadily in recent decades. In 1960, only 3% of couples were in this group, the share rose to 22% in 2012.
Framing a decrease in marriage as "for a cohort of women university and work, displaces marriage and children", what I was responding to, is simply not supported by the data. The decrease in overall marriage is disproportionately due to the non-college-educated. Getting a university degree increases a woman's likelihood of marriage.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divor...
Even in the Guardian piece you're linking there:
> To me, looking at the demographic data, it doesn’t seem that there is a widespread aversion to forming serious relationships [across educational lines] – there are more and more relationships in which women have more education than their male partners.”
> She doesn’t see large numbers of educated women holding out for an educated partner, and remaining unhappily single, in other words.
In the Pew piece linked from there,
> The primary reason for the decline in the share of married couples with similar education levels is that marriages between spouses with high school or less than high school education are much less common these days — the share is down from 74% of all marriages in 1960 to 24% in 2012. In addition, adults with high school or less education are much less likely to marry. The marriage rate among this group plummeted —from 72% in 1960 to 46% in 2012.
> Just the opposite has occurred among college graduates. The share of couples in which both spouses have a college degree has risen steadily in recent decades. In 1960, only 3% of couples were in this group, the share rose to 22% in 2012.
Framing a decrease in marriage as "for a cohort of women university and work, displaces marriage and children", what I was responding to, is simply not supported by the data. The decrease in overall marriage is disproportionately due to the non-college-educated. Getting a university degree increases a woman's likelihood of marriage.