More precisely… why don’t I know any single men who could be fixed up with a well-educated woman in her late 30s? This seems to be a common situation among our friends. We know single women whom we believe would be wonderful companions and mothers, but none of the single men whom they are seeking as partners.

A friend in D.C. says “Single women nearing 40 have spent decades perfecting their adult selves. Men of the same age are still stuck in their teenage personality.”

What is the explanation for this phenomenon? Hillary Clinton and the New York Times keep reminding us how men have grabbed up all of the good stuff (education, high-paying jobs, prestigious positions, etc.) in the U.S., but finding an unpartnered adult male who is in possession of said good stuff seems to be impossible.

[Separately, I’m wondering if the large quantity of involuntarily single-and-childless women shows poor life-planning strategies. These women have advanced education, great job skills, and good careers compared to the American average. Yet they say that they are sad about not having children and also that their primary reason for working is to earn money. Evaluating against those stated objectives, we must observe that their after-tax income is in nearly every case lower than if they’d had sex with a dermatologist or dentist in Massachusetts and collected child support. (Most of these women want two children, which, if properly planned, could easily offer a tax-free cash yield of $200,000/year via child support (multiply by 23 years in Massachusetts).) See this from the Practical Tips chapter:

In most states, the potential child support profits from a one-night encounter are roughly the same as the profits from a short-term marriage. … “Women who want to make money from the system aren’t getting married anymore,” said one lawyer. “The key is recognizing that it is a lot easier to rent a rich guy for one night, especially if he has had a few drinks, than it is to get a rich guy to agree to marriage.” Another disadvantage of marriage, from a plaintiff’s perspective, is that it prevents what attorneys call “forum shopping.” A plaintiff who is married in Texas is stuck with Texas law and $20,000 per year in child support for a single child. A plaintiff who isn’t married and who has a good understanding of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) may be able to sue a Texas defendant under California, Massachusetts, New York, or Wisconsin law and collect millions of dollars.

From the point of view of having the children that they want prior to the exhaustion of their fertility and from the point of view of financial security, these women would have been better off spending their 18-22-year-old years having sex with married men rather than attending college. That’s not to suggest that 18-year-old child support profiteer is the optimum lifestyle for every American woman, but the fact that it would yield a better outcome measured against their own goals than what the women we know have accomplished suggests that they pursued a pretty bad life strategy. Is it the case that the vast majority of women who set out on the high-education, high-achievement path end up with a desirable (to them) partner and children? So we’re just seeing a handful of outliers and therefore the strategy actually has a good expected outcome but with some risk?]

Readers: Looking at the 35-45 age group, and restricting to people who have a college degree, above-median earnings, agreeable personality, and responsible habits, what’s the ratio of single women to single men?

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