I recently ran across an article in the Washington Post archives titled “Numbers Drop for the Married With Children” (and subtitled “Institution Becoming the Choice of the Educated, Affluent”), written by Blaine Harden, a Washington Post Staff Writer, and datelined Portland, Oregon on March 4, 2007.
As Mr. Harden explains:
“… married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households, a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census. Social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage …”
The article continues, revealing that:
“The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in. The poor aren’t entering into marriage very much at all … young people from these backgrounds often do not think they can afford marriage.”
Does this pass the “reasonableness” test? Actually, yes … it makes some sense.
Let’s think about that
for a moment …
First, what does the phrase “luxury item” mean?
There’s an Economics definition (meaning goods or services with “high income elasticity of demand”, namely that the demand for it increases more than proportionately if one’s income rises by a significant amount).
In layman’s terminology, that means expensive … and presumably better in quality.
“…
very few people are skilled in determining the actual relative quality of most items
…”
I put the word “presumably” in italics because marketers have long understood that very few people are skilled in determining the actual relative quality of most items. And as a result, we’ll often use price as a proxy for quality … if a particular brand costs a lot more than another brand, we’ll assume that it must also be higher in quality.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to charge that hefty price, right?
Nope, not right at all.
People often make that error in logic because it’s hardwired into our brains to take that mental shortcut. And it’s for that reason that marketers at times intentionally overprice their products. It does wonders for their profit margins.
From all I’ve seen over the years, people mention “higher quality” when explaining why they paid so much for a ____ but the real reason was mostly because expensive items carry more cachet that cheap items.
After all, a $50,000 item is probably not ten times as high in quality as a similar item costing only $5,000 but it carries bragging rights.
Such items are status symbols
They show that you can afford to spend the big bucks and that you must therefore be someone who is very successful and important. That’s why brand names are affixed on luxury goods where others can see the brand … it’s like leaving the price tag on, but not quite so blatant (or tacky).
“…
it’s because mistresses can be very expensive and that makes having one a status symbol
…”
In many countries, “having a mistress” was (and, in some places, still is) a status symbol and even elderly guys often have one if they are high up in business or politics. But it’s not because 65 year-old men have raging libidos. It’s because mistresses can be very expensive and that makes having one a status symbol.
There was a major scandal in Japan 20 years ago when the mistress of the prime minister of Japan (Sosuke Uno, who was 66 at the time) went to the newspapers with her exposé.
But the subsequent public uproar wasn’t about him having a mistress (people realized that most of the higher-ranking politicians had one).
What made this a “man bites dog” story was that he was giving her a monthly allowance that was only about one-third as big as the going rate back then for that level in the power structure.
He suffered public humiliation
not for being immoral
but rather for being cheap
It’d be like brandishing your new Rolex watch, then having your friends and business associates discover that it was a fake that you bought from a street vendor in Asia for the equivalent of $10.
There’s nothing like paying a low price to diminish the status of an item (a fake Rolex watch may look just like a real Rolex watch, but it won’t impress anyone if it’s discovered to be a fake). And you’ll suffer a considerable loss of face if you get found out.
Is “having a wife” these days starting to become a status symbol the way that “having a mistress” has historically been?
“…
marriage rates have declined across the board in every income group
…”
Oddly enough, yes … at least when it comes to having a so-called “trophy wife”. These have all of the hallmarks of a status symbol … desirable (to guys who can’t afford one) and very expensive.
But what about for the typical young “above-average guy”? I don’t buy the “luxury item” rationale there.
Here’s why … marriage rates have declined across the board in every income group. So affluent guys aren’t getting married more often … they’re getting married less often. It’s just that the rate for poor guys has plummeted even further.
Why the precipitous drop
for poor guys?
It’s just as the earlier quote says: they don’t think that they can afford to marry. And they’d be right about that.
Partly, it’s simple math. If you’re rich or highly paid, you can afford to lose half as you’d still have quite a bit left for yourself and can go on with a somewhat normal life.
But if you’re just scraping by to begin with, losing half of that will totally ruin your life.
But partly, it’s a difference of expectations and those are influenced by experience (your own as well as that of others around you). If you and most of your acquaintances make only a modest living, you’ll be well acquainted with examples where a guy’s wife decided to upgrade to a more successful guy who came along.
And that will give you pause as it won’t take an Einstein to figure out that this could easily happen to you if you marry.
As the Jerry Springer Show demonstrates so repetitively …
Being married and poor is not
the most joyful formula
for experiencing life
You’ll also know a lot of guys who have lost their jobs at some point and that will also give you some pause. If you assume (quite rightly as it turns out) that your job security is actually quite tenuous, you’ll be reticent to take on additional obligations that you won’t be able to discharge later in bankruptcy court.
But if you’re affluent enough, you’ll likely have seen fewer divorces and the ones you’ll have seen would have been less crippling (since an affluent guy would likely still have some money left after a divorce, even though he also lost a bundle).
And you’re unlikely to have suffered many setbacks yourself … you’ve been moving briskly up the corporate ladder (that being how you had come to be affluent) and you’ll assume that this upward trend is likely to continue unabated.
“…
you’ll know that there’s a concept called “divorce” and that it happens to a lot of guys, but
…”
As a result, you’ll know that there’s a concept called “divorce” and that it happens to a lot of guys, but you’ll tell yourself that it’s something that only happens to other guys.
After all, you’re smart and you’re not going to make any stupid mistakes, right?
That’s a common mindset when one is still early in one’s career (I had the same mindset at that age). And I suspect those are the guys who are still getting married.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Stay tuned,
-Mack Doppler
