Women are going to college and then not marrying plumbers. Holy crap, who are they going to marry then?!
In a few weeks, the first of the 2011 college grads will toss their mortarboards in the air and bid adieu to campus life. A healthy majority of those hat-tossers — 57%, actually — will be women.
So here’s a question: when the time comes, will these women be willing to marry “down”? Don’t bet on it.
Bitches.
It’s easy to figure out why educated men and women have finally found each other. For one thing, educated women now bring considerable income to the joint bank account. For another, Americans have grown to expect more equality and companionship in marriage than they did in the benighted past. It makes sense to assume that the University of Michigan grad will share interests and a mindset with someone he met in econ class rather than a clerk he locked eyes with at the DMV. This may be why, as several studies have found, husbands and wives with different education levels are more likely than homogamous couples to head to divorce court.
You mean people who have similar backgrounds and interests are typically drawn to each other, and have more stable relationships than people who marry someone they just thought was kind of hot? Weird.
Still, the biggest reason we probably won’t see a lot more college-educated women walking down the aisle with their plumber is one we don’t like to say out loud: they want to have smart kids. Educated men and women are drawn to spouses they think will help them produce the children likely to thrive in the contemporary knowledge-based economy. That means high IQ, ambitious, and organized kids who will do their homework and take a lot of AP courses. The preference for alpha kids is the reason there is a luxury market for Ivy League egg and sperm donors. It also explains why, though we don’t have solid research distinguishing between elite and State U mating choices, Ms. Harvard will probably not accept a proposal from Mr. Florida State.
The biggest reason? Really, the biggest?
In this respect, homogamy, at least educational homogamy, has a profound social downside; it increases economic inequality. Educated couples pass on the smarts and habits to their children that lead to good jobs and nice homes with lots of enriching activities for the grandkids, while the children and grandkids of less-educated men and women remain behind.
Americans don’t like to think of themselves as class conscious. But marriage brings out the snob in the most democratic man or woman — for better or worse.
You know those poor and uneducated people, with their bad habits and stupid children. Educated women should do everyone a favor and marry less-educated men because otherwise, Social Downsides. Also, everything women do comes down to Babies (and in particular, the making of).
I’m pretty educated, but I don’t think I’ve ever dated a dude and thought to myself, “I would totally marry this guy for his Harvard sperm.”
But that’s because I don’t look good in crimson. Yale sperm, that’s a different story.