Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

flowingdata.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 445 posts

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#411

Post by allturtles »

bumby wrote: post #407
allturtles wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the situations are at all similar. If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. You've already beaten the odds. If you come across a man in his 30s-40s who has always been single, chances are he is not a '$100 bill' man. It's possible that he is, but it's very unlikely. This is not the same as saying that there are no such thing as older '$100 bill' men…

I think you’re missing the entire point of the joke. > If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. The economist assumes you won’t be the first person because of market efficiency. Your assumption above disregards this. It seems like you are having a hard time reconciling that with the imagined scenario of seeing the bill, because the assumption is someone who notic…

I get the point of the joke.

The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already." But I'm not saying that and I don't think the originator of this sub-thread is either. We're saying "Only a small portion of the available older men will actually be attractive mates (on whatever dimensions) because those who are attractive will have mostly been taken already."

It's like an economist saying "It's not a good use of your time to go outside scouring the sidewalks for $100 bills." That's not funny, it's just accurate.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#412

Post by bduerst »

dustintrex wrote: post #250
bduerst wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really a bad thing though? For the 1/10 times at work where the person in power ends up having a meaningful relationship with an underling that you lose, you also have the 9/10 cases of sexual harassment that you lose too.

It's a bad thing from the secretary's point of view if a) she consents to the advances and b) successfully leverages that into a marriage with far greater benefits for her and her offspring. Needless to say, those are pretty big ifs.

But then it's a good thing from the 9 other secretaries' point of view where they didn't consent to being harassed sexually, which is the point.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#413

Post by bumby »

allturtles wrote: post #411
bumby wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re missing the entire point of the joke. > If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. The economist assumes you won’t be the first person because of market efficiency. Your assumption above disregards this. It seems like you are having a hard time reconciling that with the imagined scenario of seeing the bill, because the assumption is someone who notic…

I get the point of the joke. The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already." But I'm not saying that and I don't think the originator of this sub-thread is either. We're saying "Only a small portion of the available older men will actually be attractive…

>The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already."

We may be reading it differently but to my eyes, GP said essentially the same thing with

"by definition they won't meet the highest of standards. Because if they did, they wouldn't be single."

In other words, that rich, kind, high standard unmarried 45 year old must have something wrong with him or he wouldn't be single. I didn't take them to mean "there's a smaller pool to select from" because that's trivially apparent as more people get married, but it also cuts down on the competition as well.

I don't think anyone would argue that the longer a buffet table is open, the less chance there is to get the best choices. But the economist was saying "That cake still on the buffet line can't be good because if it were, it wouldn't be there." That's much more aligned with the GP's statement.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#414

Post by fleddr »

bumby wrote: post #400
allturtles wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason that joke is funny is that the economists are ignoring the fact that someone has to be the first person to come across that $100 bill. One is not likely be the first woman to 'come across' a single man in his 30s-40s, who has presumably been 'on the sidewalk' for 10-20+ years.

It's a play on the idea of market efficiency. From the classical economist perspective, there's no point in trying to beat the market because if it were possible, somebody would have already discovered and exploited it, leaving you unable to do so similarly. Just like the dating claim that if somebody was desirable, they would have already been taken. My claim is that both perspectives are wrong because neither marke…

I'd guess it depends on how narrow or wide you define the "desirable" group. Research from dating sites often conclude that women select for the top 20% of men whilst largely ignoring everybody else.

I imagine such a "top" man to be handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny, and whatever other quality women select for.

The chance for such men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero. Almost all female attention is channeled to them, and they're unlikely to be passive themselves. The market should be efficient here. Do you know of any hot successful men that are single due to not being discovered?

If you widen the selection criteria to the best 50% of men, you're likely right that some of them in their 30s go "undiscovered". Yet it's questionable whether this is so in large numbers as time still matters:

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi...

In the age group of 30-49, 27% of men are single. Half of them want to be single and are not on the market, so that leaves 13.5% of remaining "supply".

So a single woman in this same age group looking for a man finds 86.5% of men unavailable or not interested. Did the market perfectly select the "best" 86.5% already? No, human affairs are complex, but we also should not look away from basic dynamics. Nature finds a way, whether we like it or not.

In my country (Netherlands) already from age 20, only 20% of men is single. It's unlikely that all remain with this same partner for life, but this is to point out that selection start early, and almost all "supply" is immediately taken. I don't know if the market is efficient, but it sure is fast. When trying to find your first partner in your 30s, you're a decade too late if you have high standards. In your 40s, most people have a family with kids that might be up to 10 years old, so "late" doesn't even begin to express it.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#415

Post by bumby »

fleddr wrote: post #414
bumby wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a play on the idea of market efficiency. From the classical economist perspective, there's no point in trying to beat the market because if it were possible, somebody would have already discovered and exploited it, leaving you unable to do so similarly. Just like the dating claim that if somebody was desirable, they would have already been taken. My claim is that both perspectives are wrong because neither marke…

I'd guess it depends on how narrow or wide you define the "desirable" group. Research from dating sites often conclude that women select for the top 20% of men whilst largely ignoring everybody else. I imagine such a "top" man to be handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny, and whatever other quality women select for. The chance for such men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until the…

I think I'd question some of your analysis here.

>The chance for [handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny] men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero.

No doubt it's a smaller pool, but close to zero? I would be skeptical about such an absolute claim unless there's actual data. The pew research article doesn't speak to this point specifically, and I'm not such how one would quantify it.

>So a single woman in this same age group looking for a man finds 86.5% of men unavailable or not interested

This is based on the assumption that the entire pool should be the denominator. I don't think it should, and the single men looking for a desirable mate are in the a similar situation, where over 60% of women are unavailable. If one was a highly desirable female, it would seem to they can still align with a highly desirable male because both pools are dwindling. It's not like every single female is competing with every other female. As the number of available mates goes down, so does the number of competitors, albeit at differing rates. I would expect those different rates to have an impact, but not so much that the effective ability to find a comparable mate to be driven to zero, at least not for someone in their 30s-40s.

To circle back to the economist train of thought, if alignment isn't happening it could be attributed to inefficiencies (e.g., there isn't a market that allows for relatively frictionless meeting between players) or there is a misalignment of expectations that prevents agreement between players (e.g., I can't get junk bond returns at AAA bond prices/risk).

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#416

Post by rspeele »

RedAlakazam wrote: post #326
myroon5 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://flowingdata.com/2017/07/25/divorce-and-occupation/

Thanks for linking this, this is as interesting as the main post imo. It's funny how most of the results are as expected, actuaries as the occupation with the lowest divorce rate, while jobs as bartenders and flight attendants sport the highest ones. What's up with gaming related jobs being at the top though? Gaming managers and gaming services workers especially.

I don't think it's gaming as in video games, but gaming as in Vegas.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#417

Post by bojangleslover »

bobthepanda wrote: post #231
whatshisface wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stay-at-home parents do a lot of financially valuable but unaccounted work that can come quite close to improving the family finances almost as much as if they had a job near the median salary.

Childcare has increased by 21x in price over the past 40 years. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-child-... At 16k per child per year, one or two kids is equivalent to one or two persons making minimum wage.

Well the minimum wage isn't meant to support more than one person

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#418

Post by toast0 »

anonporridge wrote: post #159
llimos wrote: post #53

When I was at university, Engineering and Psychology used to have parties together. But that might also have been because Engineering was 80% men and Psychology 80% women.

I do wonder if an unspoken part of the drive (even if a small part) to get more women in tech is to get more male engineers coupled up. There are tons of single males in STEM making buckets of money, spending very little, and retiring early. Not only does that mean the profession loses a ton of people before they become senior and have time to train up the next generation, but it reduces supply of engineers and force…

I imagine that would be worse with more Dual STEM marriages. I made buckets of money and retired early, but it could have been earlier if my spouse also made buckets of money instead of working in a field where the pay didn't justify the agrivation.

In that case, there would have been two senior STEMers leaving the field early.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#419

Post by fleddr »

bumby wrote: post #415
fleddr wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess it depends on how narrow or wide you define the "desirable" group. Research from dating sites often conclude that women select for the top 20% of men whilst largely ignoring everybody else. I imagine such a "top" man to be handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny, and whatever other quality women select for. The chance for such men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until the…

I think I'd question some of your analysis here. > The chance for [handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny] men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero. No doubt it's a smaller pool, but close to zero? I would be skeptical about such an absolute claim unless there's actual data. The pew research article doesn't speak to this point specifical…

I'm not going to be able to provide a scientific justification for the "close to zero" remark, I'm basing this on common sense. Handsome men stand out. They are desirable and attract attention wherever they go. As such, they can't be overlooked. If you then combine this favorable quality with great social skills, not only will they be discovered, it may be that man doing the discovery. If said man is also successful, not only will he be even more attractive, success is often visible, so the chance of being overlooked becomes practically impossible. But I'm sure it's not an absolute zero chance, I accept it to not be hard science.

You're absolutely right that using the entire pool is a simplification. In NYC, at age 30-40 there may be plenty of attractive mates left, as there's simply a lot of people in a small place and the career life style is the norm. Meanwhile, in the small rural town there may be no mate at all, or very few.

In the original example, highly educated women in their 30s-40s being single, I think it's a case of mismatch. Being both late and demanding (if we are to follow the stereotype) whilst supply is both low and low quality. Again, local exceptions can apply.

I do believe another complexity or nuance is the massive difference between being in your 30s or 40s. This decade is the time frame where almost everybody settles, many already in their mid twenties. Early 30s you may still stand a chance, in your 40s...really not the same thing. You're middle-aged and still have to start "life". Family planning may start to become an issue.

Life starts at 20, not 40.

Re: Which jobs most often pair together among married couples

#420

Post by ls612 »

pc86 wrote: post #225
julianlam wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think lawyers marry lawyers, you should look up physicians!

It's not all that surprising if you think about it. Let's say you go right to college after HS, and take a year off between college and med school (due to the competitiveness this is becoming very common, maybe even more common than direct admits). You'll enter medical school around age 23 and will be there until around age 27. You'll be a resident until at least 30, but maybe as late as 33 or 34 depending on the spe…

It's insane how much worse med school is now. When my dad went in the 70s he got in straight out of undergrad, spent one year in an internship and 3 years in Ophthalmology residency before getting his first real paychecks around 30. Everything I hear about med school today makes me think he would have never made it nowadays.
Post reply on HN