Tuesday, January 19, 2010

As Heard on NPR

After having gotten up entirely too early to deal with a very wet, leaky apartment, I crawled back in bed to listen to Morning Edition. The first story I heard, "Modern Marriages," was about a new study by the Pew Research Center about marriages in 2007 versus those in 1970. Among the study's findings were:
  • More women have college degrees than men (for the first time ever among those 44 or younger)
  • "From 1970 to 2007, husbands whose wives earned more than they did jumped from 4 percent to 22 percent"
  • 87% of women now say that it is more important to marry a man who can communicate well, be intimate, and share the burden of housework than to marry a man who makes more money than they do
A follow up story noted that another finding of the study was that, "Today, among U.S.-born 30- to 44-year-olds, the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be married."

I found this all very interesting, especially in light of the fact that I'm going out tonight with someone, Aiden, who seems to be doing just fine financially. The dating site has a spot to put your income range on your profile, but a lot of people don't fill it in. I don't choose to date or dismiss people on the dating site because of their income or even their profession, but I'm sure there are plenty who do. Readers, has financial status/stability ever been a turn on/off for you?

3 comments:

Superquail said...

When I was in college, I dated this guy from Montana for awhile. And though he wasn't super-rich, he was a poker player who went around to all the Indian casinos in the area and he carried his money in the form of a money clip full of hundred-dollar bills. I have to admit, there was something subversively amusing about going to BaskinRobins and seeing the lady's eyes pop out when he whipped out his money clip to pay.

Lanafactrix said...

I dated a guy who was, by my standards, very wealthy. While that wasn't why I dated him, it was nice not to have to worry about going to an expensive restaurant. Income just isn't as important as other factors.

Superquail said...

I once dated a guy who was extremely poor back in high school. He was on reduced price lunches and his family was definitely living below the poverty line.

While it wasn't usually much of an issue, there were definitely times when I got tired of having to pay for everything, like movie tickets meals, coffee, gas, etc. whenever we went out. A couple of times it seemed like he was kind of bothered by this, too, but it wasn't the reason our relationship ended.