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Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

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Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#201

Post by dumbfoundded »

StillBored wrote: post #179

Ok, I can see the lopsided lawyers marrying lawyers, but how is it that software developers are so lopsidedly marrying other software developers when something like 90% of them are male? I guess pretty much every female software developer marries a male software developer which works out to the 12% number? Makes me sorta want to see a breakdown by sex. aka "male software developer has a 6% chance of marrying a softwa…

Yeah, I think a relative difference would be more helpful than the absolute number. There are lots of admin people so lots of jobs are likely to end up marrying one.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#202

Post by deathanatos »

robocat wrote: post #127
maerF0x0 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough, my anecdata has been the inverse. Thats is being a software engineer has been sufficient evidence for people to walk away without even getting to know me. Which is definitely interesting because I've had people say "I cant believe you're an engineer, you're nothing like the other engineers I know" outside my work context.

Wow - that is still happening? The initial interest followed by that sudden glazed disinterest as soon as they find out your job. Or is it location based where they have formed a stereotype from previous encounters? I had thought a well paying job would be a good start to a relationship (enough money does prevent a lot of problems). Personally I don’t like judgmental people (I’m meta-judgemental) so it usually has be…

Happened to me when I was in college, ~a decade ago. As soon as the major was known, disinterest. Was judged by the cover.

People still even assume that I must wear contacts, because I guess nerd == glasses, and they don't see glasses, ergo contacts? Like, nope… I just don't require those.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#203

Post by itchyouch »

nostrebored wrote: post #191
nxm wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men generally do not care about the income of their wife, as that's not what they're innately attracted to. Hypergamy is characteristic of women and hence they want to marry up, and won't settle for someone who makes less than them. The latter is a reason for why there are so many educated but unmarried women today in their 30s and 40s.

> women are attracted to money and status! Not men!!! Professionals I know in the 20-35 cohort only want to date other professionals. The ones that don’t want some weird stay at home trophy wife dynamic. There’s nothing provably innate about some men preferring trophy wives. There is a lot of availability due to cultural baggage. The phenomenon that you’re talking about is culturally bound. Anecdotally my wife makes…

My limited observation is that women use HEHI as signal and as a filtering mechanism, otherwise non-HEHI men that could otherwise be candidates end up providing signal circumstantially through introductions, or a common environment that provides opportunities for serendipitous bonding to occur.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#204

Post by comeonseriously »

StillBored wrote: post #179

Ok, I can see the lopsided lawyers marrying lawyers, but how is it that software developers are so lopsidedly marrying other software developers when something like 90% of them are male? I guess pretty much every female software developer marries a male software developer which works out to the 12% number? Makes me sorta want to see a breakdown by sex. aka "male software developer has a 6% chance of marrying a softwa…

My SO and I are both software engineers, so blame me for taking one of the lady devs off the market.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#206

Post by whakim »

bumby wrote: post #200
whakim wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social class seems to have always played an important role in marriage (e.g. Jane Austen as a primer on 19th-century upperclass British society), so I'm not sure it's fair to say that this is change from the past. But I think it's fair to say that it is a factor in concentrating wealth.

IIRC it was the book The Meritocracy Trap that detailed the change from past generations, but I don’t know the numbers or underlying sources off the top of my head

Thanks for bringing up the source; if you do end up finding the data I'd love to see it. It's also fascinating to think about the relationship between social changes like this one and some of the economic/political drivers of inequality (less progressive taxation/inegalitarian investments in education/globalization). I suspect that the rise of tertiary education over the past 40-50 years which has further stratified educational attainment along class lines may be a relevant factor.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#207

Post by paxys »

missedthecue wrote: post #110
TehShrike wrote: post #91

I was disappointed they didn't include "homemaker" or "unemployed" so you could see which professions supported a family by themselves.

I think you'd see a lot of professions of people who culturally value a homemaker, not anything about the highest paying careers. My guess is that the list you describe would be dominated by the trades, trucking, and small business ownership.

Or really any profession which is concentrated in rural vs urban areas and/or has a younger demographic.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#208

Post by lotsofpulp »

itchyouch wrote: post #203
nostrebored wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> women are attracted to money and status! Not men!!! Professionals I know in the 20-35 cohort only want to date other professionals. The ones that don’t want some weird stay at home trophy wife dynamic. There’s nothing provably innate about some men preferring trophy wives. There is a lot of availability due to cultural baggage. The phenomenon that you’re talking about is culturally bound. Anecdotally my wife makes…

My limited observation is that women use HEHI as signal and as a filtering mechanism, otherwise non-HEHI men that could otherwise be candidates end up providing signal circumstantially through introductions, or a common environment that provides opportunities for serendipitous bonding to occur.

Men use it as a filter too, in my cohort (mid 30s, coastal US cities). A second six figure income in the partnership provides a lot of ease of mind, and is almost required if your goal is to live in certain neighborhoods.

I would say it is probably true that a smaller proportion of men use it as strong of a signal as women do, but that makes sense to me considering women have a decent risk of not being able to earn income due to childbirth and child rearing.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#209

Post by ozarker »

comeonseriously wrote: post #204
StillBored wrote: post #179

Ok, I can see the lopsided lawyers marrying lawyers, but how is it that software developers are so lopsidedly marrying other software developers when something like 90% of them are male? I guess pretty much every female software developer marries a male software developer which works out to the 12% number? Makes me sorta want to see a breakdown by sex. aka "male software developer has a 6% chance of marrying a softwa…

My SO and I are both software engineers, so blame me for taking one of the lady devs off the market.

My wife and I are too. Though we had our first child last week. She said earlier in the pregnancy that she would like to keep in the workforce. But as each day passes with the baby it feels more likely she'll decide to be a full-time mom. Either decision is fine in my book :)

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#210

Post by therealdrag0 »

xyzelement wrote: post #178
mabbo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're crazy. My wife is an engineer and I'm a software developer. We make so much money. Want to know a great way to keep a relationship together? Never worry about money ever .

I agree that having money is great - but are you actually saying that the best relationship is one where combined income is maximized? Is there no room in your utility function for mutual growth, sum being larger than the parts, etc?

People are really stereotyping in this thread. There can still be a lot of variance in engineering. Furthermore engineers aren’t robots; my engineer-partner does-pottery, and engineer-me has a liberal arts degree.
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