[danielschonfeld]

This question is answered in the interview. She is saying that a household with a stable long lasting relationship is what’s driving these better outcomes. She’s also saying that in America marriage (unfortunately) seems to be the only way to keep people together for a long while (long enough for a child to not experience a parade of parents by the time they are 15 according to the article).

In my personal opinion. I think what she’s stumbled on is yet again proof of Americans hyper individuality rearing its ugly face. The Europeans can stay together longer without the marriage piece of paper because

1) Selfishness derived from hyper individuality doesn’t drive people to nope out of relationships at the first sign of minuscule problems or one side not getting their way

2) Since over there not everything is an economical benefit proposal people value the relationship with different metrics than our countrymen and women do.

[Retric]

Again, both parents in a stable long lasting relationship are capable of a stable long lasting relationship. Americans being bad at this doesn’t mean long term relationships are the sole difference, though they likely do provide some benefits it’s not the total difference in populations.

"I don't know exactly what it is about marriage, but it is a very practical matter," says Kearney, chafing at all the criticism. "If you just look in the data, marriage is what delivers kids a stable, long-term, two-parent household in this country."

The data is clear, however understanding the root causes is important because it impacts what approaches are most useful. If the relationships themselves are important the having a high school class in maintaining healthy relationship could be useful. If it’s the broader issues then we need to address those issues.

[beej71]

I'd like to see a control on this. Is there a group of people who thought they were married, but by bureaucratic snafu actually weren't? Did they have different outcomes than people who were really married?

[throwaway2037]

U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all have roughly the same divorce rates.

Source: https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/divorce-rate-by-count...

[xctr94]

You’re comparing against some of the highest rates in Europe; possibly because the Nordic countries value that same individuality that GP mentioned?

[seec]

Why do you assume Europeans do any better at this? Do you have comparable statistics? From my own experience, it is extremely unlikely that it is any different once you accounted for all variables. One reason Europeans might stay together longer together is for the tax benefits and other government subventions they would not get if they were single. In fact, except for single mothers who get everything with very litte conditions but terrible outcomes. The reality does not have much to do with a special government, religion, or whatever convoluted explanation you want to find. The answer is right there in plain sight; expect you cannot really say it because of strong enforcement of the public discourse.

If that was not clear, I am saying that women are the variable that is messing everything up, and as a recipient of this reality I think anyone who believe otherwise is either a fool or politically motivated for some reason.

[theGnuMe]

Europe has a better social safety network and wants people to have more kids.

[mensetmanusman]

Germany has the same fertility rate as Japan.

[jokethrowaway]

> and wants people to have more kids.

That doesn't seem to be the case. The last 60 years saw plenty of anti family propaganda (same like in the US) and the numbers confirm that trend.

The only people keeping the number of kids per family high are immigrants from Africa / Middle East who haven't been indoctrinated for 60 years.

[corethree]

Yes hyper individuality is part of it. The other part of it is gender equality. For most of human civilization genders were not equal so both sexes evolved traits that are also unequal.

The most glaring trait responsible for lack of marriage is female hypergamy. Previously women being of generally unequal/lower status then men and overall a smaller pool of candidates (no online dating) would be forced to be more egalitarian in mate selection. It was easy for a woman to find a man who got paid more than them because this was most men.

Now that women are doing better and having relatively more equal pay with men hypergamy is rearing it's head in a more pronounced fashion. Female selection preferences are much more strict because if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs.

This along with exposure to the top men via online dating, women can now match with the top men in the entire city rather then the top men in her social circle. And this is exactly what you see in the online dating statistics.

The top 20% of men match with the top 80% of women and the bottom 20% of women match with the bottom 80% of men. I mean as progressive as you want to be there's no denying what I'm saying here as this data is just glaring. It spits in the face of people who say otherwise as it's measuring current dating behavior. Individualism is part of the story because it does push for more power for women overall. But it is in the end this individualism among women that is changing the game in the US. But not just the US, other countries as well.

So what's going on is you have a few men who have an abundance of choice. They're never going to settle because when men have an abundance of choice they switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all.

This is actually more beneficial to women from certain theoretical perspectives. In anthropology there's a saying that monogamy benefits men while polygamy benefits women and general female behavior shows it. Basically for the best genes and resources, women generally prefer to "share" a top alpha man with other women over being in an exclusive monogamous relationship with a beta male.

Men on the other hand don't accept this strategy because they are providers of resources. If a woman sleeps with another man then the partner may end up raising and spending resources on another mans child. Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair.

You can actually see how this behavior plays out in certain countries like Japan where women are totally ok with their husbands fucking prostitutes. As long as that man "loves" them and is providing resources for them, fucking a prostitute without love is totally ok for japanese women. Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i9qS5vDXLSI

Basically we live in an era of changing social norms and it's accelerating natural selection. The majority of men born today will not pass on their genes. Traits of alpha males including height, confidence will be expressed to a greater extent in future generations and it's possible for the trend to continue roughly culling the bottom 80% of men out of the evolutionary process.

Women are slowly getting the upper hand in terms of natural selection, and for men to get the upper hand usually they have to reintroduce monogamy back into the society as this guarantees a mate for every man. Monogamy is the more beneficial strategy to men overall because very few men can actually benefit from polygamy just by the nature of the way numbers work. Monogamous restrictions are pervasive enough throughout human civilization that some women have even evolved monogamous instincts via sexual selection as men actually actively seek these traits out in women.

This is basically what's going on from the most scientific point of view. It's not politically correct so a lot of people vehemently disagree. Of course everything I say here is speaking to a general truth. There are plenty of exceptions but those exceptions do not negate the existence of the general truth.

[reaperman]

> if women are getting paid equally with men then they must find men that are paid more as well and this is obviously a much smaller pool than when women had no jobs.

Well-paid women are much more likely to date men who make less than them. What matters today is that the household is happy and overall has enough financial stability between both earners combined.

> switch their mating strategy from monogamy to harlem style polygamy. And then the rest of the men have a much harder time finding anyone at all.

*harem, not Harlem. Also "harem-style" polygamy is rare in the USA, the most common form by far is "kitchen-table polygamy". In this version, it's actually easier for arbitrary random men to find mates because women in stable poly relationships happily have sex with a wide variety of men "on the side", and can carve out space and time to give those men chances to earn a strong relationship with those women.

> Thus all men have intense instincts to basically end an entire relationship once a woman has a single sexual affair.

Anywhere "affair" is a thing, anyone has intense instincts to end the relationship, because of a catastrophic breakdown of trust. In the vast majority of poly relationships in the USA, women having sex with other men isn't an "affair" and doesn't trigger this type of reaction.

[ckrapu]

An assumption here is that attractive men both pair with women at a higher rate and also have more children. I don't see any reason that's the case - the very largest families I am aware of in my extended social circle belong to men who are not necessarily the greatest catches.

[withinboredom]

There are a metric shit ton of assumptions in here that I’m not sure are true. The truth of the matter is that women tend to work together and men… not so much. Once you see the whole picture, I can see how you can see the world through such a perverse lens.

Sadly, I’m about to hop off the train, but if someone replies that they are interested, I’ll provide a writup that will surprise you.

[kelseyfrog]

Women's perspective here: this is a very beta perspective on mating strategies. Easy pass.

Curious though, have you thought about changing your perspective to increase your evolutionary fitness?

[oasisaimlessly]

One of your 20%'s was probably intended to be 80%.

That aside, yeah; we live in an interesting time. Sadly, technological progress, equality, and monogamy are all positively correlated, so despite some acceleration of natural selection, this is surely a net negative for society.

[Racing0461]

You'll be downvoted on this website, but you spoke nothing but facts.

###

I'll sum this up.

The female's mating strategy is the dual mating strategy (genetics vs resources). Historically women had to find some balance in this (should i marry the prince or the struggling artist - plot of tianic). Modern society satifies the resources side of the equation (whether that be overt welfare or covert welfare (getting a student loan + going to college + paper pushing corporate job)), leaving women the freedom to completely maximize the genetics side. The men providing the genetics side has no incentive to stick around to fulfill the resources side.