Shortage of suitable partners for college-educated women?

Increasing numbers of women “are adopting dogs for security and/or companionship,” partly because of “the great education divide.”

Since 1979, the report says, the number of women going to college has accelerated relative to male enrollments. By 2012, there were 2.8 million more women than men in college, and by 2020 this “enrollment gap” is projected to grow to 4.4 million as women account for 74 percent of enrollment growth.

In 2000, the adult populations of college-educated men and women were approximately equal. By 2013, there were 4.9 million more women age 25 or older with college degrees than men in that age group. This means a shortage of suitable male partners for a growing cohort of young women, who are postponing family formation. The report says that millions of female-led households are being established by women who, being focused on their careers, are delaying motherhood, partly because of a shortage of suitable partners. More about suitability anon.

“Increased ‘competition’ for college-educated males” might mean that college-educated bachelors will feel less incentive to become domesticated, further depressing family formation. And for the growing class of undereducated young men, there are increasingly bleak “employment, income and dating prospects.” What is good news for dog breeders is bad news for the culture.

Two years ago, Susan Patton, a Princeton graduate and mother of two sons who attended Princeton, detonated multiple explosions in the culture wars when, in a letter to the Daily Princetonian, she told “the young women of Princeton” what “you really need to know that nobody is telling you.” Which is that their future happiness will be “inextricably linked” to the men they marry, so they should “find a husband on campus” because “you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.” She explains:

“Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. . . . It will frustrate you to be with a man who just isn’t as smart as you.”