If you're familiar with evolution of signaling traits in animals, this isn't actually very surprising. If you have a competitive mate market (where members of o

If you're familiar with evolution of signaling traits in animals, this isn't actually very surprising. If you have a competitive mate market (where members of one or both sexes compete for the other sex), all excess resources will get funneled into signaling status. The most well known examples are probably peacocks and male birds of paradise, who spend a tremendous amount of energy building extravagant plumage to attract females. An alien biologist would probably predict that the end state of a competitive, highly differentiated job market is prospects investing excess resources into signaling quality until the marginal return approaches $0.