For the first time in US history, there are more couples in which the woman is better educated than her husband than vice versa, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. This isn’t just a US phenomenon: there are more women than men graduating from universities across western countries so the consequential marital pairings aren’t surprising.
That there may not be enough educated men to go around educated women is discussed in business journalist John Birger’s book, Date-onomics.
In The Guardian earlier this week, professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University Robin Dunbar warned that women looking for equally-educated male partners, ‘will be forced to compete, I guess, and those that lose will have to downgrade their expectations and are likely to marry later as a result.’ (Apparently there’s historical evidence of this in 18th and 19th–century Germany.)
I hardly need to mention that education may have little correlation with intelligence – one only has to think of friends who are hugely entrepreneurial or creative and also former college drop-outs. However, a number of studies have shown that men and women choose dates with similar attributes, from age and height to occupation and education.
My theory is not so much that women marrying older are downgrading (though, of course, this was a very likely reason in the less liberated past), but that these women enjoy their independence, know how to have a good time and sometimes a (likely young and fit) artist/entrepreneur is the perfect choice of date. As the Gentleman once said after I told him about my exploits with Graffiti Boy, ‘hardly the doctor/surgeon/lawyer/politician. But much more fun, I imagine.’
