There Aren’t Enough Marriageable Men

In 2012, a record one-in-five Americans 25 or older had never been married, the Pew Research Center reported today.* This wasn’t surprising, as matrimony has been on a decline for decades now. However, Pew did offer an extremely elegant, two-part illustration of the role economics have played in that process.

Part I: What are America’s young, unmarried women looking for in a mate? A steady job.

Part II: What do young, unmarried men lack? Steady jobs. For every 100 never married women between the ages of 25 and 34, there are just 91 employed and never-married men the same age. Where once America had a surplus of working single men, now it has a shortage.*

Click through to see the accompanying graphs. Just one of the reasons, I’m sure.