by Jim Rose in applied price theory, economics of love and marriage, gender, labour economics

Richard McKenzie wrote a couple of papers over the last 10 years pointing out that the connection between the labour market and the marriage market will entrench the gender wage gap.

Sex differences in minimum acceptable earning capacity in a romantic partner https://t.co/kTabM8TVro pic.twitter.com/RgfljXLv8J — Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 9, 2016

Across all cultures, good financial prospects influence female choices of a partner. Because income influences the prospects of men more than it does women in the dating and marriage market in all cultures, men have an extra incentive to work hard and an additional reward to that of women when they invest in human capital, riskier jobs and longer hours.

Source: The New World of Economics: A Remake of a Classic for New Generations of … – Richard B. McKenzie, Gordon Tullock – Google Books.



Seinfeld had a simpler explanation of this: men are shallow, it goes with the territory.

The only way that men will stop investing in better economic prospects as a way of winning better girlfriends and wives, is for women to lower their standards.

The response of less educated women to more and more of the better educated men and women pairing off together was to stop marrying what was left in the dating pool and have children on their own rather than drop their standards.