4 ms·

> Share of couples in which both partners have a college degree: now up to 15% Wow I'm out of touch with the real world.

by rb808 9y ago

Jtsummers 9y ago
Did you think it'd be higher or lower?
- Upvoter33 9y ago
  I think they mean: wow, that's way lower than I expected. I had the same reaction, as virtually every couple I know both have college degrees.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Historically, men date down (professionals marrying their executive admins, nurses marrying doctors) whereas women will not, so this percentage is based on how many college eduated women can find equally or greater educated, eligible men. Citation below. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-...
    - 0x4f3759df 9y ago
      If women don't date down, then the higher they go, the fewer men there will be, its lonely at the top.
      - simonsarris 9y ago
        Yes, there are hundreds of articles about this. See for example: "The Mating Crisis Among Educated Women" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736410
- nwsm 9y ago
  sounds like higher
notadoc 9y ago
Outside of major cities, the rate drops substantially. Also, many more women than men are college educated now, which is distorting dating in interesting ways, since most women (and some men) tend to want to date someone who is at least their equal with employment and/or education.
- psychometry 9y ago
  > Also, many more women than men are college educated now No, not even close: https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attai... https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
  - maneesh 9y ago
    Err -- did you look at your graph? Your first link shows that 2017 was the first year that more women were educated then men....and your second link is from 2015, before the flip.
    - psychometry 9y ago
      Of course I looked at the graph. Even though women earned more degrees than men in 2017, for nearly the entire history of the country, men earned substantially more college degrees than women. Thus, men currently hold significantly more than half of the college degrees right now. We're talking about prevalence, not incidence.
      - jazzyk 9y ago
        You are correct, but current college graduates (so 56% of them women) are in the "dating pool" much more so than the 60-year olds (where a higher percentage of men are educated, but not much dating going on).
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
askafriend 9y ago
There is a little asterisk under the chart that clarifies that they are talking specifically about FOUR-YEAR DEGREES. That makes much more sense. There are a lot of people attending community colleges or getting their associate’s degrees. Otherwise I’d be pretty shocked if it was all degrees. 15% is way too low for that....at least I’d think.
- in_cahoots 9y ago
  Only 1/3 of adults have four-year degrees. If dating were purely random you’d expect about 11% of marriages to be between partners with degrees, so this figure is perhaps a little lower than what I’d expect but not too far off.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Adults is a very wide range, younger people are more likely to get married (aka not be married) and significantly more likely to have a collage education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Educational_Attainment_in_the_United_States_2009.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
    - in_cahoots 9y ago
      Sure, but the original quote about 15% of couples having dual degrees also looked at the whole population. What you’re saying is true but isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison in this case.
      - Retric 9y ago
        To be more clear, the married population is very different from the total population. People are also likely to match with people of similar ages. 20-24 years 9.7% 25-29 years 32.9% 30-34 years 52.4% 35-39 years 63.3% 40-44 years 65.5% 45-49 years 65.4% 50-54 years 65.3% 55-64 years 65.6% 65-74 years 64.4% 75-84 years 54.2% 85+ years 33.4% So 50+ population is more than twice as likely to be married vs 20-29, but the 20-29 population is significantly more likely to have a degree. Modeling this correctly would be a little more difficult than just saying % married with degree vs. total population with degree as you need to look at population sizes and age ranges that get married etc. Data from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/families/cps-2016.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/families/cps-20..., though I did some basic math to compare Married Spouse Present + Married Spouse Absent vs total population.

> Share of couples in which both partners have a college degree: now up to 15% Wow I'm out of touch with the real world.

by rb808 9y ago

> Share of couples in which both partners have a college degree: now up to 15% Wow I'm out of touch with the real world.

Jtsummers 9y ago

Did you think it'd be higher or lower?

Upvoter33 9y ago
I think they mean: wow, that's way lower than I expected. I had the same reaction, as virtually every couple I know both have college degrees.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Historically, men date down (professionals marrying their executive admins, nurses marrying doctors) whereas women will not, so this percentage is based on how many college eduated women can find equally or greater educated, eligible men. Citation below. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-...
  - 0x4f3759df 9y ago
    If women don't date down, then the higher they go, the fewer men there will be, its lonely at the top.
    - simonsarris 9y ago
      Yes, there are hundreds of articles about this. See for example: "The Mating Crisis Among Educated Women" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736410
nwsm 9y ago
sounds like higher

notadoc 9y ago

Outside of major cities, the rate drops substantially. Also, many more women than men are college educated now, which is distorting dating in interesting ways, since most women (and some men) tend to want to date someone who is at least their equal with employment and/or education.

psychometry 9y ago
> Also, many more women than men are college educated now No, not even close: https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attai... https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
- maneesh 9y ago
  Err -- did you look at your graph? Your first link shows that 2017 was the first year that more women were educated then men....and your second link is from 2015, before the flip.
  - psychometry 9y ago
    Of course I looked at the graph. Even though women earned more degrees than men in 2017, for nearly the entire history of the country, men earned substantially more college degrees than women. Thus, men currently hold significantly more than half of the college degrees right now. We're talking about prevalence, not incidence.
    - jazzyk 9y ago
      You are correct, but current college graduates (so 56% of them women) are in the "dating pool" much more so than the 60-year olds (where a higher percentage of men are educated, but not much dating going on).
- toasterlovin 9y ago

askafriend 9y ago

There is a little asterisk under the chart that clarifies that they are talking specifically about FOUR-YEAR DEGREES. That makes much more sense. There are a lot of people attending community colleges or getting their associate’s degrees. Otherwise I’d be pretty shocked if it was all degrees. 15% is way too low for that....at least I’d think.

in_cahoots 9y ago
Only 1/3 of adults have four-year degrees. If dating were purely random you’d expect about 11% of marriages to be between partners with degrees, so this figure is perhaps a little lower than what I’d expect but not too far off.
- Retric 9y ago
  Adults is a very wide range, younger people are more likely to get married (aka not be married) and significantly more likely to have a collage education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Educational_Attainment_in_the_United_States_2009.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
  - in_cahoots 9y ago
    Sure, but the original quote about 15% of couples having dual degrees also looked at the whole population. What you’re saying is true but isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison in this case.
    - Retric 9y ago
      To be more clear, the married population is very different from the total population. People are also likely to match with people of similar ages. 20-24 years 9.7% 25-29 years 32.9% 30-34 years 52.4% 35-39 years 63.3% 40-44 years 65.5% 45-49 years 65.4% 50-54 years 65.3% 55-64 years 65.6% 65-74 years 64.4% 75-84 years 54.2% 85+ years 33.4% So 50+ population is more than twice as likely to be married vs 20-29, but the 20-29 population is significantly more likely to have a degree. Modeling this correctly would be a little more difficult than just saying % married with degree vs. total population with degree as you need to look at population sizes and age ranges that get married etc. Data from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/families/cps-2016.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/families/cps-20..., though I did some basic math to compare Married Spouse Present + Married Spouse Absent vs total population.