{"id":3218,"date":"2016-12-07T13:12:09","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T18:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2016-12-07T13:26:50","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T18:26:50","slug":"on-straight-mens-marriageability-across-the-class-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/2016\/12\/07\/on-straight-mens-marriageability-across-the-class-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"On Straight Men’s Marriageability Across the Class Divide"},"content":{"rendered":"

The situation.<\/strong> Americans are delaying and foregoing marriage in larger numbers than they used to.\u00a0 In 1980, about 5% of 40-year-old women with only a high school education or less had never been married.\u00a0 Almost 9% of 40-year-old women with at least a BA had never married.\u00a0 And these numbers have been rising for all of these groups, some more than others.\u00a0 It’s all the more interesting because, in this same time period, marriage has become legally accessible to more<\/em> individuals.\u00a0 But, by 2013, the proportions of 40-year-old women who had never married exploded (see graph below*).\u00a0 There are a variety of reasons that account for this shift. \u00a0At a basic level, women are getting more education and have more life options than they did 30+ years ago.\u00a0 But are heterosexual women foregoing marriage altogether, or are they still waiting for \u201cMr. Right\u201d?\u00a0 And if they\u2019re waiting, are there enough Mr. Rights to go around?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"never-married-women-by-education-1980-2013\"<\/p>\n

The man question.<\/strong> With the rise of women\u2019s options not to marry, no wonder questioning men\u2019s status as \u201cmarriage material\u201d is pervasive in popular culture. \u00a0This \u201cman question\u201d is so accepted that further elaboration is not typically required when suggesting an individual man fails to pass muster.\u00a0 But, sociologists take the idea seriously. We have examined three decades of research to demonstrate the rise of the man question\u2014and the ways it relates both to rising gender equality and economic inequality.<\/p>\n

Marriageability = jobs? <\/strong>In the late 1980s, sociologist William Julius Wilson sought to give the phenomenon a social scientific name and a more precise and measurable quality. Wilson studied<\/a> poor and working-class communities and discovered that inner-city joblessness among lower-income black men was resulting in a dilemma for inner-city lower-income black women: a growing shortage of men who might qualify as marriageable. Since the majority of marriages and relationships in the U.S. (both then and now) are between people with similar class and racial backgrounds, this extended the gap even further.<\/p>\n

Wilson defined men\u2019s \u201cmarriageability\u201d in terms of economic stability. Employment was key, in his view, to men\u2019s suitability as marital partners. Changes in the economy in the prior several decades had produced ripple effects that left fewer men in this group able to find gainful employment. And these problems still exist<\/a>.\u00a0 Using education as a proxy for class status, lower-income heterosexual women still face a pool of marriageable men that is too small for them to all find husbands. \u00a0<\/strong>In fact, the data above suggest that it may very well be a problem that has gotten worse, particularly for Black Americans.\u00a0 In recent times<\/a>, we have seen returns to higher education for Black women increase at a modest rate, while Black college educated men\u2019s returns have actually declined.\u00a0 And the lack of employment for those without a college degree\u2014which is hard to obtain for both Black men and women\u2014has become more difficult for Black men<\/a>.\u00a0 This means fewer and fewer men match women in terms of education, jobs, and other social class characteristics.<\/p>\n

But who is thinking about men as more than a pay check?<\/strong> Wilson\u2019s suggestion that too many lower-class men are not really marriage material because of the job market produced a stream of research on how lower-income women are navigating this challenging terrain. In the 1990s, the use of economic stability as the primary measure of \u201cmarriageability\u201d received little push-back from other scholars.\u00a0 Few scholars, for instance, have sought to examine men\u2019s marriageability outside of lower-income groups. And from the graph above, you can see that less educated women\u2019s rates of never marrying have increased much more than more educated women\u2019s.\u00a0 But, are middle- and upper-class women measuring men by the same yardstick?\u00a0 And if so, how do they measure up?<\/p>\n

We examined<\/a> over thirty years of research from 1984 \u2013 2015.\u00a0 Our overview confirmed that \u201cmarriageability\u201d research that emphasizes men\u2019s value as a paycheck focuses exclusively on lower income groups of women and neglects the ways that women across the class divide may struggle finding \u201cmarriageable\u201d men, but perhaps for different reasons.\u00a0 Our overview confirmed that \u201cmarriageability\u201d research neglects a consideration of more complex measures than economic stability and is limited to research examining the lower-class. We suggest that scholars begin to ask about men\u2019s \u201cmarriageability\u201d across the class divide.<\/p>\n

If it is about jobs, why are middle class men subject to the marriageable man question? <\/strong>Existing research suggests that the yardsticks for working class and middle class men are distinct\u2014but maybe not in the way you\u2019d expect.\u00a0 Our review of the research shows that while lower-income men often fail to measure up as a result of joblessness, substance abuse, and incarceration (all issues which negatively impact their employment), middle- and upper-class men able to find employment are not always understood as marriageable.\u00a0 Data from online dating sites like OkCupid.com illustrate this issue, too. In online dating profiles, straight men are much more likely than straight women to list words associated with jobs and professions (assuming these are the qualities women are looking for).\u00a0 But, as studies of middle- and upper-class women show, that just isn\u2019t enough. These women\u2019s understandings of what qualifies as a \u201cmarriageable\u201d man goes beyond a paycheck\u2014it has to do with relationship quality and equality as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, women\u2019s expectations for their relationships have transformed across the class divide.\u00a0 Women want more out of marriage<\/a>.\u00a0 Many still want the economic security associated with marital households, though women today may not need to lean on this security as much as they did thirty years ago.\u00a0 But, they also want a set of intangibles that is much more related to the quality of the relationship than the individual qualities any given man might possess.\u00a0 High quality relationships provide economic support, but they also come with emotional support, shared commitments to household labor, childcare, and more.\u00a0 They want a partner in every sense of the word. And within this transformation, men of different class backgrounds are failing to prove themselves \u201cmarriageable\u201d\u2014but not necessarily for the same reasons.<\/p>\n

For instance, research shows<\/a> that in the face of economic constraints that make the breadwinner model unattainable to many working-class and poor fathers, they are redefining this role to prioritize what they can and do bring to the table\u2014a more involved form of parenthood. Ironically, this kind of relational fathering sounds like what many middle- and upper-class women with children or desiring children say they want more of from their partners. Middle- and upper-class fathers<\/a>, however, end up prioritizing the paycheck and minimizing parenting involvement due primarily to workplace policies and constraints<\/a>. Many lower-income men fail by the old metric\u2014income.\u00a0 But research suggests that in some ways, they fulfill many women\u2019s desires for egalitarian relationships.\u00a0 Conversely, middle- and upper-income men are more likely to qualify as \u201cmarriageable\u201d by the old metric (income), but fail by new egalitarian standards for relationships\u2014relationships both women and men claim to desire.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s \u201cmarriageability\u201d is best understood, we find, in the context of two trends: increasing expectations of gender equality among both women and men and growing economic inequality and insecurity.\u00a0 Research shows that these twin trends make egalitarian relationships and marriages available to relatively few.\u00a0 Wilson used income as synonymous with marriageability; a steady and reliable paycheck was all men needed.\u00a0 But, marriageability is more complex than that.\u00a0 Today, income is more of a baseline expectation for consideration.\u00a0 And research suggests that some men may be prizing these qualities in themselves to the detriment of things that women might actually want from them.<\/p>\n

____________________________<\/p>\n

Thanks to Virginia Rutter for advanced comments on this draft (a while ago).<\/p>\n

*Thanks to Philip Cohen for the data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The situation. Americans are delaying and foregoing marriage in larger numbers than they used to.\u00a0 In 1980, about 5% of 40-year-old women with only a high school education or less had never been married.\u00a0 Almost 9% of 40-year-old women with at least a BA had never married.\u00a0 And these numbers have been rising for all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1958,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245,30335,55,35058,32383,37960,175,76,37920],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-feminist-sociology","category-gender","category-in-the-news","category-qualitative-research","category-quantitative-research","category-sociology","category-work","category-work-and-family-policy","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3218"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3227,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3218\/revisions\/3227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/feminist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}