Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game

By Jon Birger

Date-onomics explains why college-educated women struggle to find comparable male partners. Each year, colleges across the country graduate more women than men. Over time this results in men out-kicking their coverage and single women complaining about their lack of options.

Other takeaways from the book:

• The women who married younger were decisive, not necessarily attractive. They made men commit and gave them ultimatums.
• In an environment of imbalanced gender ratios, men know they have options and behave accordingly.
• Women should look at population demographics before moving. Great places for women with an oversupply of college-educated men include Seattle, WA, San Francisco, CA and ski towns where college-educated males defer adulthood.

Quotes

“This explains why a disproportionate number of the women who are still single in their thirties are so attractive and marriageable , while a disproportionate number of the remaining men seem to be unattractive, socially awkward, emotionally damaged, or unemployed . Gimein concluded that the good men really are taken. They married young — “ to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty or passion or intellect, but their decisiveness.”

“Men want to be wanted, and in a lopsided dating market, women who are pursuers are more likely to succeed than those who sit back and wait for Mr. Right to woo them.”

“Ultimatums work because they create artificial scarcity in an otherwise abundant marketplace”