Our thanks to M, a regular contributor of interesting pieces, for this. He comments:
Western women are more empowered than ever, and they’re in the workplace in higher numbers than ever.
At the same time Western nations have greater debts, unemployment, and social problems than ever before.
The exact opposite of what Hillary Clinton is saying.
He’s not wrong. Has Hillary Clinton ever said anything about women’s happiness? Or does she just want women to be like men, economic workhorses, regardless of how women would like to spend their lives, perhaps spending more time with family and fiends? What a truly grim woman she is. If she ever becomes President, life will get so much worse for American men. On the plus side, more of them will join up the dots and understand why their human rights are assaulted in so many areas.
Exactly my point. AM is, as I understand it, an inevitable consequence of professionals moving in the same social milieu, but the societal inequality that this creates, is greatly exceeded by women’s tendency for hypergamy, something which is far less pronounced in men.
For instance doctors and nurses will mix both socially and professionally but I am sure that the likelihood of a male doctor marrying a female nurse is far higher than that of a female doctor marrying a male nurse, even when the relative numbers (i.e. there being fewer male nurses than female nurses) are taken into account.
I believe therefore that AM and hypergamy are two separate things and it is hypergamy which is having the most detrimental effect on society.
The continued hypergamy of female professionals is yet another example of women wanting to have their cake and eat it, with negative consequences on society as a whole.
Women want prestigious high paid careers, but they are also greedy for the material benefits which two high salaries can bring and they want the safety net of having a well-paid husband, which will allow them to retire early, if they so wish.
Society takes a double hit from this.
High-paid professional couples will drive up house prices and the cost of living in general and monopolise the best schools, leading to increased societal inequality and stagnating social mobility.
The other effect which we see are skill shortages, as women leave the professions in their 40s and 50s. The latter is the principle reason for the shortage of doctors, which we now see in the National Health Service.
Yes greater participation of women in the workforce will increase GDPs of any country, But that’s the only ‘positive’ aspect of it. On every other count it has negative consequences,which far outstrip that single benefit. I will state but a few ones:
1-decreasing birth-rates,graying populations -unsustainable
2- putting huge pressure on pension schemes -unsustainable
3-hypergamy -unsustainable
4-rocketing divorce rates -unsustainable
5-social break down,delinquency,child development problems -unsustainable
6- ‘positive discrimination’ socialist market practices -unsustainable
7-decline in eduacational standards/gender meddling,
discrimination against male students -unsustainable
8-preferential treatment of females at workplace -unacceptable
9-across the board discrimination against men and boys -unacceptable and unsustainable
Is it really so smart to hoard women en masse to schools and workplaces in the end?
The economic and social performance of the west in the past 30 years indicates failure,not a success in any of the above mentioned categories. If current trends continue,the west will implode economically as well as socialy. i think everyone can see by now where we are heading,except the politicians,perhaps….
M.
Despite the highly newsworthy divorces of the rich and celebrated in fact the breakdown of “marriage” as a social institution is actually proportionately a greater and greater problem the lower the income scale one goes. Though rather unromantic it appears statistically far more likely for a rich man to achieve a stable marriage than a dustman. Hypergamy is statistically a very good bet for sustaining a marriage , equally matched (in wealth) less so and way down at the level of neither partner having much “worldly goods” is also where partnerships are most fragile and frequently broken. Of course there may indeed be great romances but it seems love is reliant on a healthy bank balance . I suppose being “a many splendoured thing” means love requires a splendid budget.
Similar to what Mike said, I think AM feeds the hypergamy.
Paul, you touch on a fascinating point. Assortative mating is almost inevitable in that people mix with those of the opposite sex in their workplaces etc. And assortative mating also happens when the supply of higher-status males is reduced (e.g. through women taking more senior roles and reducing the ‘pool’ of higher status men). Women remain highly disinclined to pair with markedly less well-off men – unless with a pre-nup, the biggest customers for which are women today – which I guess explains why so many women complain about the shortage of available men. What they mean, of course, is a shortage of available men of higher status than themselves. Women will never complain about a shortage of low-status men, because these men are invisible to them as potential partners. All this made sense to me when I read Steve Moxon’s ‘The Woman Racket’ (2008). Great book.
Are you sure that what is happening is ‘assortative mating’ as you put it and not hypergamy, the tendency of women to select mates of equal or higher social standing compared to themselves?
I have long felt that employment equity has created HUGE problems.
1) workforce is effectively doubled, result in dilution and reduced wages. It has been shown that wages are smaller compared to cost of living, pre-‘equality’.
2) the overall income-equality gap has widened as a result of assortative mating. Lawyers marrying doctors instead of lawyers marrying girl next door. Consequence is that you get the high income dual career families.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595972-how-sexual-equality-increases-gap-between-rich-and-poor-households-sex-brains-and