The marriageable mate dilemma is likely to be the enduring impact of educational inequities. It’s a simple math problem: 62 percent of those earning associate’s degrees and 57 percent of those receiving bachelor’s degrees are female. If women are looking for an equally educated mate, some are going to come up short.
In today’s Washington Post Lori Gottlieb tackles the question once again:
Here comes another Valentine's Day, and oh, how I wish I could spend it with a husband. Not an Adonis with the humor of Jon Stewart and the bank account of Bill Gates; just a good-enough guy. This might sound innocuous -- a single woman wishes she were married -- but apparently, it makes me a throwback to the '50s, pathetic, desperate, needy, immature, creepy, weak, Ann Coulter meets the Devil and a few other phrases I can't print in a family newspaper. I know, because I've made this confession before.
Gottlieb doesn’t raise the education attainment gap, but for most women that’s the driver behind this Census Bureau statistic she cites: the percentage of never-married women ages 25 to 44 more than doubled between 1970 and 2006.