# Young men and relationships **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 11, 2025, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156 "2025-02-11T05:39:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/61 "2025-02-12T03:26:21Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I couldn’t find anything saying whether this gap has changed over time, though. A little more searching! Numbers a bit different but has trends to 2010 anyway. > **[FP-13-12.pdf](https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of-arts-and-sciences/NCFMR/documents/FP/FP-13-12.pdf)** See page 3. Over the previous 23 years the biggest increase in ever cohabitating was among women who graduated HS with no college (12 year’s education). The greatest number was among those without a HS degree. And > The education divide in cohabitation experience has been increasing. Another dataset with some other factoids: > **[Socioeconomic Factors and Differences in Forming and Maintaining Marriages...](https://www.childtrends.org/publications/socioeconomic-factors-and-differences-in-forming-and-maintaining-marriages-and-cohabitations)** > women’s transition from cohabitation to marriage occurs most often for those who are highly educated.18,25 For example, among women who cohabited at some point from 2005 to 2010, the probability of transitioning from cohabitation to marriage in a given year was 24 percent for those with a college degree and less than 15 percent for those with lower levels of education.26 Consistent with these findings, higher incomes among women under age 30 are associated with a reduced risk of cohabitation dissolution.24,27 Educational attainment is similarly linked to the stability of cohabiting unions. Women with at least some college education have significantly lower chances of dissolving their cohabiting unions and experiencing multiple union dissolutions early in their lives, relative to those women who did not attend college. 24,27,28 ---
**Author:** ![pezworld](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bb73d2/32.png) [@pezworld](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezworld)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/62 "2025-02-12T03:38:28Z")
Sounds like my nephew, minus the completed degree and plus 12 years in age ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/63 "2025-02-12T14:46:27Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I don’t think a hard “=” sign is the right fit there. But it hardly seems controversial to say that there’s considerable correlation. Wealthy trust fund babies who have never worked a day in their life are a thing, and there are plenty of ambitious folks out there who lack the intellect and/or luck to be convert their ambition into long-term financial security. But laziness is surely underrepresented in the rich category and overrepresented in the poor category, and being ambitious has to improve your odds of landing in the rich category instead of the poor category. I would dispute even considerable correlation before seeing data. ETA: rest hidden in spoiler box, because I realized it’s a tangent > **Tangent** > > It’s the kind of thing that seems self-evidently obvious, then increasingly shaky the more you think about it. > I could agree that _within a specific field_ if we’re looking at the most successful people they will tend to be the more ambitious, yes. But comparing people in general has far too many confounding factors; comparing the employed to the self-employed, those that had inherited wealth both for capital and their own education etc, and generally career choice etc. > > And in terms of laziness, I’d say an important correlation is with self-esteem. People who neither earn much, nor are working towards promotion, generally have a lack of self-belief and self-regard; I think “laziness” is too loaded a term here. > > IME it’s a big difference when people have seen and been around success; seeing for themselves that a person can have an idea, invest their time in it, and reap the rewards both financially and in terms of status. > A lot of people I grew up with have never seen that. And for me personally, there’s still a level of success that’s unreal to me. It’s difficult to not feel like an imposter at the meagre level of middle-manager success I’ve had. ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/64 "2025-02-12T15:01:29Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > When you consider that so many men are so ill-equipped to be actual contributors to a relationship other than monetarily, not having any sense that they need to be emotional and household maintenance and childcare partners, if they are to compete with even being alone, for women, it’s not surprising what is taking place now. So much this. I was with my ex husband for 20 years, and during the majority of that time I made substantially more than him. It never bothered me because he brought other things to the relationship that were more important to me. Now when it comes to dating, I would be willing to date a man that makes considerably less so long as 1) he’s shown some ambition in life and worked to improve himself and has something more than a minimum wage job 2) he can contribute in other ways to building an enjoyable life together. But what I’ve found is so many men don’t want to date someone that makes more than them, and/or they don’t have any desire to contribute anything other than money. Helping around the house, etc. is unfathomable to them. There is no desire to do any kind of emotional lifting in the relationship. And then they’re bitter that they can’t keep a partner. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/65 "2025-02-12T22:17:17Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > women’s transition from cohabitation to marriage occurs most often for those who are highly educated.18,25 For example, among women who cohabited at some point from 2005 to 2010, the probability of transitioning from cohabitation to marriage in a given year was 24 percent for those with a college degree and less than 15 percent for those with lower levels of education.26 Consistent with these findings, higher incomes among women under age 30 are associated with a reduced risk of cohabitation dissolution.24,27 Educational attainment is similarly linked to the stability of cohabiting unions. Women with at least some college education have significantly lower chances of dissolving their cohabiting unions and experiencing multiple union dissolutions early in their lives, relative to those women who did not attend college. 24,27,28 So basically poorer/less educated women are less likely to get married, and their serious relationships are more likely to break up too. I doubt this change is making anyone’s life better, and the instability and (sometimes multiple) ‘step’ parents are definitely bad for kids. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > When you consider that so many men are so ill-equipped to be actual contributors to a relationship other than monetarily, not having any sense that they need to be emotional and household maintenance and childcare partners, if they are to compete with even being alone, for women, it’s not surprising what is taking place now. Are higher earning, better educated men better on this axis? I think they are. But why would that be? That doesn’t fit the article either: given they are able to contribute more financially, you’d expect them them to contribute less in other ways. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/66 "2025-02-12T22:32:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > … given they are able to contribute more financially, you’d expect them them to contribute less in other ways. You’d only expect that if marriage was a business contract. I think it is far more likely that better educated men are … better educated. They are aware that they should treat their spouses with respect, that marriage is a partnership of equals, and so forth. They are, typically, quite a bit shittier at this than they imagine they are, but they know what is expected of them. Men with less education are probably going to fall back on outdated societal norms more often, and demand a servant-wife as of old. Men who are experiencing the gutted job market for non-college graduates might be carrying around more hostility toward women, whom they can blame for this. Educated, better-earning men tend to have educated, better-earning spouses, who are more apt to feel confident enough to express their needs and wants. These people also tend to stay married, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/67 "2025-02-12T23:04:40Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > and their serious relationships are more likely to break up too The relationship benefit of higher education is even stronger: among those who do marry divorce is less common among the more highly educated. [https://divorce-education.com/divorce-rate-by-education-level/](https://divorce-education.com/divorce-rate-by-education-level/) ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/68 "2025-02-12T23:28:52Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > You’d only expect that if marriage was a business contract. I think it is far more likely that better educated men are … better educated. They are aware that they should treat their spouses with respect, that marriage is a partnership of equals, and so forth. They are, typically, quite a bit shittier at this than they imagine they are, but they know what is expected of them. Men with less education are probably going to fall back on outdated societal norms more often, and demand a servant-wife as of old. Yeah, I guess. > [@DSeid](#): > > The relationship benefit of higher education is even stronger: among those who do marry divorce is less common among the more highly educated. I knew that one already. I wonder how much is the effect of higher education vs being the sort of person who gets one, though? Both require a certain amount of effort and staying power. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/69 "2025-02-12T23:38:55Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I knew that one already. I wonder how much is the effect of higher education vs being the sort of person who gets one, though? Both require a certain amount of effort and staying power. I’m gonna guess that the main predictor of getting a college education is having parents who have college degrees. And even, that parents who are married tend to also produce children who marry. And the reverse of both is also true. I don’t have cites but I’m just betting. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/70 "2025-02-12T23:42:30Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I wonder how much is the effect of higher education vs being the sort of person who gets one, though? Both require a certain amount of effort and staying power. A whole lot more for some people than for others. I speak as somebody who got a BA pretty much because it seemed everybody I knew was expecting me to. It would have taken more effort and staying power for me to announce that I wasn’t going to college than it did for me to go. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/71 "2025-02-13T00:56:38Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > being the sort of person who gets one, though? And the sort of person/couple less likely to be under as severe stress of food and housing insecurity, and more likely to have a broader network of financial and social support? Although to be sure college (and graduate if it applies) educational debt is a major stressor. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/72 "2025-02-13T09:09:33Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I’m gonna guess that the main predictor of getting a college education is having parents who have college degrees. And even, that parents who are married tend to also produce children who marry. And the reverse of both is also true. I’m sure there’s a strong correlation, though both have been changing - in opposite directions - over the last few decades. Doesn’t explain why higher education and marriage would be correlated in the first place, though. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I speak as somebody who got a BA pretty much because it seemed everybody I knew was expecting me to. It would have taken more effort and staying power for me to announce that I wasn’t going to college than it did for me to go. Lol, you reminded me there were a couple of girls in my class at sixth form who decided not to apply to university, to the consternation of our teachers. The school was probably being judged in some government league table based on how many kids went. Even if you just followed expectations in going, you still had to complete your courses and pass your exams, and manage your own time and workload in a way you didn’t have to at school. Not everyone succeeds at this. Are you happy you did a BA even though it wasn’t something you really chose, or did it not make much difference to your life? > [@DSeid](#): > > And the sort of person/couple less likely to be under as severe stress of food and housing insecurity, and more likely to have a broader network of financial and social support? Yes, that too. If we had the data we could separate out education, income, and SES background and see what effects they have independently. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/73 "2025-02-13T10:46:02Z")
> [@liirogue](#): > > But what I’ve found is so many men don’t want to date someone that makes more than them, and/or they don’t have any desire to contribute anything other than money. Women do the same when it comes to height. I one read a stat that said over 90% would never date a “short” man, regardless of anything else; the man must be at least 3 inches taller than them. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/74 "2025-02-13T11:17:30Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Women do the same when it comes to height. I one read a stat that said over 90% would never date a “short” man, regardless of anything else; the man must be at least 3 inches taller than them. It seems to be a built in preference; I recall a study where women who said they didn’t care about how tall a man was gave more positive descriptions of short men in photographs whose image had unknowingly to them been manipulated to make them taller looking. ---
**Author:** ![LadyStardust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ladystardust/32/17997_2.png) [@LadyStardust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LadyStardust)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/75 "2025-02-13T12:44:29Z")
Could you provide me this study? I myself am a woman, and I have dated men who are shorter than me. Same with my other woman friends. I find that some short men have victim complexes about their height. In reality, it’s their personalities and negativity about being short that turn women off. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/76 "2025-02-13T13:18:27Z")
Agree. We used to have a courier stop by every once in a while who was about five foot two, but he had all the office ladies swooning in his wake. We also had a short IT guy that drew the female attention, but he had a English accent as well. 😍 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/77 "2025-02-13T14:03:35Z")
Not directed to me but the literature on this, in both directions, is vast and cross cultural. Here’s just one: > **[Frontiers | Assortative mate preferences for height across short-term and...](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.937146/full)** > > Height preferences reflecting positive assortative mating for height—wherein an individual’s own height positively predicts the preferred height of their mat... The point is that it is relative not absolute height. Men would prefer a woman shorter than they are and women prefer a man taller than they are. The specifics vary culturally more for the preference by males than by females. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/78 "2025-02-13T14:09:00Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I’m sure there’s a strong correlation, though both have been changing - in opposite directions - over the last few decades. Doesn’t explain why higher education and marriage would be correlated in the first place, though. It’s a web. Better educated correlates to generally more advantages: more stable childhood including married parents, higher expectations, cultural norms, social safety net. Successful marriages are modeled by parents and other close relatives, less monetary stress means less marital stress, higher education means a wider and more liberal world view which means women have larger expectations of themselves financially and larger expectations of men, socially and emotionally. Educated men, who have the advantage of modeled successful marriage and less chronic financial stress, tend to be more able to rise to the expectations of those educated women. It just goes round and round. And the very same is true in reverse. People who grow up in financial stress, in unstable single-parent homes, who didn’t grow up in a culture which valued education, who have no models of successful marriage or college education and no support for either one, are going to sink to the bottom. Those men will find it difficult to secure women willing to settle for someone with few financial prospects and also no tools for successful relationships. I think that white middleclass people find it hard to imagine how very difficult it is to break out of patterns like this. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/79 "2025-02-13T14:22:31Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > t’s a web. Better educated correlates to generally more advantages: more stable childhood including married parents, higher expectations, cultural norms, social safety net. Successful marriages are modeled by parents and other close relatives, less monetary stress means less marital stress, higher education means a wider and more liberal world view which means women have larger expectations of themselves financially and larger expectations of men, socially and emotionally. Educated men, who have the advantage of modeled successful marriage and less chronic financial stress, tend to be more able to rise to the expectations of those educated women. It just goes round and round. I agree with almost all of this. The “more liberal world view” doesn’t necessarily correlate with marriage, though. There are alternative webs, often centered around organized religious worship (as opposed to religious identity), that correlate to higher marriage rates. But the idea that wealthier people are likelier to get married seems obvious on its face. Marriage is _expensive_, especially in a culture with a wedding industry complex touting five-digit ceremonies. And the expectations around marriage in middle-class culture are also expensive. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156/80 "2025-02-13T14:39:30Z")
I think it’s a combination of absolute and relative height - I would have had no problem dating a man who was 5’3" or 5’4". But shorter than me ? No way - I’m 5’1" [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/young-men-and-relationships/1014156.md?page=5)