Why American men are getting less marriageable

Looking at this from another perspective:

As a modern woman who makes good money, I'd be comfortable in theory with marrying a man who makes far less than I do.

The problem with that in practice is gender roles in marriage. It's still the norm for women to be responsible for the lion's share of cooking, cleaning, and childrearing. Even in the marriages with the most "woke" husbands I see among my friends, the wife almost always ends up both doing more and spending more mental energy on the home.

That means that for men, marriage lightens the burden of (for lack of a better term) managing life, leaving more time and energy for career. For women it's the opposite. This is the primary reason IMO why marriage is a good deal for both parties if the breadwinner makes more than the homemaker. It's just that men who are willing to be the homemaker are vanishingly rare. And if both are breadwinners, almost invariably the homemaking burden falls more heavily on the wife.

That means that from a practical (as opposed to a romantic) perspective, marrying a man who makes significantly less than me is liable to be an enormous burden. Why would I want to support a man both economically and practically?

Yes, there are some men out there who would make the fair trade and do more of the homemaking if I were the primary breadwinner. There are also a bunch who say they'd be willing to do it, but aren't aware of what that fully entails and aren't willing to put in the emotional investment. (See [1] and [2]). There are also more of those men in younger generations in general; and the ones who exist in my generation are likely to be already married - and happily so. So I'll stay single - and happily so.

The solution, in my opinion, would be to continue to erase traditional gender roles. If most of the men out there were ready to take on the homemaker role enthusiastically, I would be far more willing to consider them as partners even if they make a fraction of what I do.

Agreed. And I would even say that the traditional gender definitions will shift automatically if it's really the case that women can be the major bread winner in a relationship. The basic deal of "I give you a home, you give me financial stability" is a good one, no matter who's who in this relationship. It's just a transition that naturally takes 2-3 generations, and the people who are caught in the middle are a little F*d.

> And if both are breadwinners, almost invariably the homemaking burden falls more heavily on the wife.

Which is why I'm in favor of outsourcing (i.e. cleaning, take-out, blue apron). My friends (she's a doctor and he's a product manager) say getting a cleaner is the best thing they could have done for their relationship

To be fair, I know men who absolutely do their fair share around cooking, cleaning, and childrearing. However, obviously, they are not the ones bragging on forums about constantly working overtime nor are much visible in their hobbies etc.

Edit: for those who downvote - there is opportunity cost for doing these things. At minimum, he is more tired when he does that. And it is not possible to do fair share of house work if you work 70 hours a week every week. Nor when you train or work on hobby additional 20 hours a week.

It is not like men who did all those things would have longer days or magically needed less sleep.

> The solution, in my opinion, would be to continue to erase traditional gender roles. If most of the men out there were ready to take on the homemaker role enthusiastically, I would be far more willing to consider them as partners even if they make a fraction of what I do.

The solution is not merely one sided. Women must also be willing to 'give up' those roles.

Say what you will about men stepping up but my ongoing experience in a marriage with the woman as the bread winner and me as the home maker (with kids) is that my wife puts herself under a lot of 'self' pressure to be the classic mum (baking, cleaning, ironing, washing whatever). She also receives a ton of pressure from her mother and from her friends, intended or perceived it doesn't really matter, to maintain the 'mum to the kids and running the house' meme.

Believe it or not we've had stand up arguments about her not doing the washing and ironing and leaving it to me, because she just can't let it go. The most recent one is wrestling control of the kitchen from her, not in the sense of shutting her out but letting me in. Even food purchasing, I began to solely do that last year but New Year, New Resolutions has brought a return to the 'we'll eat healthily, I'll cook every evening and bake at the weekend' pantomime. Despite the fact we already ate great food and she's away with work for at least 1 week in 6 and the weekly late evenings still in work or day trips away for conferences/meetings.

All this might sound like one big complaint but really it's just to illustrate that it takes both sides to change in order to actually affect change.