Reply to American Women Are Giving Up on Marriage (Wall Street Journal)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Those women are not settling for men who are not compatible, full partners. Nothing wrong with that. It sounds like if any of them met the right guy, they'd consider marriage.

But, doesn't that mean men are giving up too? The population of the U.S. is 50.5% female. If they aren't getting married, neither are men. Or is something going wrong with a large portion of the male population making them incompatible marriage partners?[/quote]

Hard truth time: a large portion of the male population has always been comprised of "incompatible marriage partners" but women didn't used to have the agency to opt-out like we do now. [/quote]

It goes both ways and is partially self fulfilling. The typical woman nowadays isn’t someone most men would want to marry. Men historically were motivated to work hard and become attractive by the prospect of marriage and supporting their family. If you look around and the available women don’t appeal to you, or give away sex without commitment, what’s the point in making yourself a marriageable man? If young men are losing hope that a good future spouse for them even exists, it greatly reduces their drive to become marriageable. [/quote]

Your assertion isn't supported by the facts...again from the article:

American women have never been this resigned to staying single. They are responding to major demographic shifts, including huge and growing gender gaps in economic and educational attainment, political affiliation and beliefs about what a family should look like.

A 2022 Pew survey of single adults showed only 34% of single women were looking for romance, compared with 54% of single men, down from 38% and 61% in 2019. Men were also more likely than women to say they were worried that nobody would want to date them.

In a 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 5,073 U.S. adults, 48% of women said that being married was not too or not at all important for a fulfilling life, compared with 39% of men—up from 31% and 28% in 2019. In a 2024 Wall Street Journal/NORC poll, 58% of women aged 18 to 29 said marriage was at least somewhat essential to their vision of the American dream, compared with 66% of men.

Marriage rates for both men and women are in decline, in part owing to less pressure to pair off and higher expectations for a would-be match. “Dating apps make people feel like there might always be a better option,” said Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland. “They view looking for a marriage partner the same way that you view looking for a job candidate.”  [/quote]

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