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An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

jeremygreenwood.net

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Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#11

Post by throwawayaway »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #6

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increas…

> ever increasing divorce rates

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=divorce+rate+over+time...

not sure your premise is true.

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#12

Post by jacobolus »

michaelchisari wrote: post #4
dj-wonk wrote: post #3

> There are 14 parameter values to determine, {β, ϕ, ζ, γ, δ, θ, ι, ω, μ, α, τ, λ, η, σ}. Using Greek letters may follow in the economics tradition, but it is a pain for humans who need to match up symbols with concepts.

Using easily readable/recognizable variable names is one thing computer programmers got right. It's always frustrating to read mathematic or economic models that use symbols instead. I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but I haven't heard it yet.

The reason is that it makes everything much more compact, which facilitates symbolic manipulation by reducing the space that symbols take, so that the differences between each step can be easily spotted, and in particular so that it’s easier to write down each step, which is especially important when working with pencil and paper.

The problem with short cryptic symbols comes when there are so many symbols that it’s hard to keep them straight, when symbol uses fall far from their definitions, when the same symbol is overloaded to mean different things, or when the author’s and the reader’s cultural conventions about symbols are different.

In a programming context, short variable names are extremely handy when either (a) the scope of the variable is limited, or (b) there’s a strong convention associating the name with the meaning, so that someone seeing the name knows immediately what it represents. For example, writing pi instead of circle_constant, writing i instead of loop_index, etc. tends to make code more readable rather than less.

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#13

Post by irishcoffee »

throwawayaway wrote: post #11
zxcvvcxz wrote: post #6

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increas…

> ever increasing divorce rates https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=divorce+rate+over+time... not sure your premise is true.

As a response, marriage rates over time:

https://www.google.com/search?q=marriage+rates+over+time&sou...

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#14

Post by Dewie »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #6

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increas…

> Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increasing divorce rates be explained similarly by risk? There is much less risk of divorcing now, women are about as financially independent as men, and it could be argued there is a greater safety net for single parents (e.g. [1]).

Thought experiment? Isn't that what most people assume to begin with?

> This is interesting because it would imply that in the natural state of things, men's primary family purpose is/was as a provider/protector of some sort. So as that need diminishes, perhaps it shouldn't be the norm to expect everyone to get married.

On the other hand, nurturing functions have also to a degree been delegated to kindergartens, daycare and schools.

And divorce courts still seem to want that sweet dough from the primary income provider when a divorce does happen. Though that point isn't relevant to people who never get married to begin with. And I guess society changing doesn't stop lawyers to keep wanting money... or divorcees that benefit from the divorce courts.

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#15

Post by trhway »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #6

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increas…

>So as that need diminishes, perhaps it shouldn't be the norm to expect everyone to get married.

just look at Sweden. Strongest social net and government child support benefits - lowest marriage rate with highest rate of out-of-wedlock births(~60%).

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#16

Post by chadzawistowski »

discodave wrote: post #9
zxcvvcxz wrote: post #6

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increas…

I agree with you but would quibble on one thing "women are about as financially independent as men"... I would say that women are about 70-80% as financially independent as men, due to the gender pay gap. That gap is even higher if you consider women's under representation in high paying jobs (e.g. tech). However... That's light years better the past when women were essentially considered to be the property of their…

If you're going to name figures I think you ought to cite sources rather than just guessing.

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#17

Post by unethical_ban »

discodave wrote: post #9
zxcvvcxz wrote: post #6

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increas…

I agree with you but would quibble on one thing "women are about as financially independent as men"... I would say that women are about 70-80% as financially independent as men, due to the gender pay gap. That gap is even higher if you consider women's under representation in high paying jobs (e.g. tech). However... That's light years better the past when women were essentially considered to be the property of their…

I didn't downvote you, but I can see why others did. Unequal pay doesn't mean unequal independence.

I'm in debt with a middle class job. I'm just as financially independent (in the short term) as someone making $250k, or someone with no debt making 60% of what I do.

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#18

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

oh_sigh wrote: post #8
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting Greek letters are not suitable for human comprehension.

Presumably the poster would have about as much as a problem if the author picked the first 14 letters of the English alphabet.also, it is not a given that everyone knows the green alphabet, and it is harder to correlate symbols when you don't have familiarity and know the names of them.

If you're going to be the kind of person who reads technical papers, you should also be the kind of person who knows the Greek alphabet, it's only got 24 letters and not all of them are generally used.

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#19

Post by throwawayaway »

irishcoffee wrote: post #13
throwawayaway wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ever increasing divorce rates https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=divorce+rate+over+time... not sure your premise is true.

As a response, marriage rates over time: https://www.google.com/search?q=marriage+rates+over+time&sou...

the demonstrated decreasing marriage rate does not support the premise that divorce rates are increasing.

is your response relevant in some other way?

Re: An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

#20

Post by innguest »

chadzawistowski wrote: post #16
discodave wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you but would quibble on one thing "women are about as financially independent as men"... I would say that women are about 70-80% as financially independent as men, due to the gender pay gap. That gap is even higher if you consider women's under representation in high paying jobs (e.g. tech). However... That's light years better the past when women were essentially considered to be the property of their…

If you're going to name figures I think you ought to cite sources rather than just guessing.

He's alluding to the old 77% canard which has already been debunked. There's no pay gap between genders, the pay gap is between women who never married and women who have married at some point regardless of present status.

Something else he gets wrong is this "under representation in high paying jobs" canard. That's bad approximation again. The under-representation is in thing-oriented jobs versus relationship-oriented jobs. In Sweden, in all their equality, we still see mostly male engineers and mostly female nurses. It just happens that thing-oriented jobs pay more.

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