6 ms·

Rich Like Me: How Assortative Mating Is Driving Income Inequality

32 points by kvee 5y ago

elmerfud 5y ago
This is not at all shocking to me and actually makes a lot of sense. I'm single, middle-aged and I live in a neighborhood that is not representative of my educational or income status. Living alone my household income is roughly seven times the average household income of the neighborhood. I actively go out of my way to meet people that are fundamentally different in their income, education and other factors. When it comes to dating people in my neighborhood there is two general classifications of people that I come across. The first is one that is difficult to have any kind of meaningful or deep conversation about anything on. They are so addicted to their phone and taking selfies and fluff pop culture that there is no foundation to even build a relationship around. The second is the person who you can have an interesting conversation with on many topics but once they find out you're a software engineer or have another job that they assume is well paying (regardless of how you dress or live) all they become interested in is finding how to take money out of your wallet. Literally trying to push buttons as if you're an ATM machine. When I date people of similar education backgrounds similar work experience and socioeconomic levels it's totally different. It's a totally new set of problems but it actually gives the hope of someone to have a long-term relationship with. Because they have their own money and they don't need constant affirmations from their glowing rectangle. One other thing that I have discovered from traveling the world is that it's not like this in all cultures. Especially having traveled around Southeast Asia there are many women of all ages that are seeking to better their lifestyle and it's a natural assumption that when you were a tourist there you're probably better off than they are financially. Unlike the people in my neighborhood though they are willing to engage in an actual relationship in order to better their financial status. They understand the concept of either marrying into it or being a long-term partner in a relationship to get that financial advantage.
- MrWiffles 5y ago
  Just out of curiosity, where are you located that you've had that experience? It's not a mirror-image of mine, but it's fairly close. I'm in El Paso, TX (US). In my area, there are almost no professionals of any field, let alone software engineering. You've got doctors and lawyers, but that's about it. So language barriers aside (most speak English and Spanish here but you do run into a fair amount of Spanish-only), the biggest hurdle I run into relating to people - not even dating, just general day-to-day stuff - is education and IQ. Most are just very, very poorly educated at best. And yeah there's a lot of addiction to vapid pop-culture nonsense as well, which presents an immediate barrier to me because...ugh, no thanks. But ultimately, most people just have a lackluster ability to grasp even the most basic of things (I had to explain who the Romans were once, I kid you not). Not saying they're all stupid or anything, far from it. I think it's a socioeconomic problem, caused by generational poverty being a barrier to higher education. There's a university here (UTEP), but it's way out of reach for easily 80-90% of people born and raised locally. Those who do go there leave the area almost immediately (and I can't blame them, I will too, and soon). Damn shame, too. There are some really nice, big-hearted folks in this town and they deserve a fair shake.
  - elmerfud 5y ago
    I live in Des Moines Iowa. I would say our experiences are pretty similar based on how you describe it. I also agree I don't find that any of these people are stupid or anything like that they just are stuck in a, I don't know the right word, socioeconomic rut that they either don't know how or have no desire to dig themselves out of. And some of them are actually quite intelligent I know a couple of people their ability to learn new information to memorize it to regurgitate it and to postulate assumptions based upon that previous knowledge would make excellent engineers but they have no desire to do that. They want the money and they want to increase their status but they think they'll do it by winning the lotto or finding a billionaire who will take them away on their yacht or something insane like that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- JustLurking2022 5y ago
  So you're saying that you miss the fact that people in other cultures are better at pretending to care about you? Personally, not sure if that's better or worse.
cafard 5y ago
When have the rich not largely married/mated among the rich?
- scotuswroteus 5y ago
  that's covered in the article lol
  - cafard 5y ago
    I think the article skips a few points. It was once much more common for women to skip college or marry without finishing college. (George H.W. Bush did not marry a college graduate, but he didn't marry Cinderella.) It was also more common for women to marry shortly after finishing college and drop out of the work force. Also, focusing on labor earnings ignores family wealth. [edit: added last sentence]
strikelaserclaw 5y ago
wonder if IQ will get concentrated at the top too, i see smart people move to a few cities and marry other people in their profession or a similar profession. Back in the day before social media and such i feel that dating wasn't so selective (He/She needs to have X,Y,Z), so people had more diversity in who they married and this spread the genes around more.
- contingencies 5y ago
  IIRC IQ has lost a lot of validity as a metric. TLDR: it's basically a back-slapping measure of how western-traditional-logic-problem-educated you are, and therefore a great proxy for success in life (because if you had the time to follow logic problems as a kid in a developed society or near proxy thereof, then you probably had good nurture and good resources).
  - exolymph 5y ago
    This isn't true, IQ is one of the most predictive measurements.
    - sirspacey 5y ago
      The outcome of the study of IQ was that it was not predictive of success https://nautil.us/your-iq-matters-less-than-you-think-7708/ https://nautil.us/your-iq-matters-less-than-you-think-7708/
  - strikelaserclaw 5y ago
    I used IQ in a vague way as a proxy for sustained focus, ability to see patterns, mental energy etc... No one can argue that people that are higher in these traits have a higher chance at being what we consider "intelligent"
  - sandstrom 5y ago
    People say this, but there is little research supporting this claim. On the contrary, the past few decades of research has shown that IQ is (1) hereditary, 0.5-0.8 correlation, depending on the study and (2) increasingly important to navigate a modern, complex society. For example, this paper is a pretty good summary: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289697900143 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602... Here is a good popular science article on the same subject: https://quillette.com/2018/08/25/the-dangers-of-ignoring-cognitive-inequality/ https://quillette.com/2018/08/25/the-dangers-of-ignoring-cog...
JustLurking2022 5y ago
While not the specific focus of this article, I found that having a successful spouse helped both of us earn more - we always had a reasonably accurate baseline to compare our progress/earnings against and know when it was time to make a move.
mgh2 5y ago
Related, by the same author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30692364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30692364
rs999gti 5y ago
So should rich people be able to marry two spouses, with at least one being at a lower income level than themselves?
- 0ldskool 5y ago
  Bring back harems where the well off have multiple spouses? I feel like the way inequality is going some places might end up like this or already are. Its usually religion that prevents this. Would sugar babies fall into this category (pay for a relationship and them using that money for school). Maybe a slightly more modern approach would be group relationships, each person specializing in a different life area/role? Anybody watch The Expanse? The problem with such setups is that they are often rife with abuse in some form or another. The person who controls the money controls the group/harem. Isn't this how the world worked before women gained voting rights and ability to work in the labor force. Seems the best way to have an equal partner relationship is to make similar amounts of money with similar amounts of education.
aaron695 5y ago
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Restricting the dataset to only the top 10% and bottom 10% while ignoring the middle 80% seems a bit suspicious.

32 points by kvee 5y ago

This is not at all shocking to me and actually makes a lot of sense. I'm single, middle-aged and I live in a neighborhood that is not representative of my educational or income status. Living alone my household income is roughly seven times the average household income of the neighborhood. I actively go out of my way to meet people that are fundamentally different in their income, education and other factors. When it comes to dating people in my neighborhood there is two general classifications of people that I come across. The first is one that is difficult to have any kind of meaningful or deep conversation about anything on. They are so addicted to their phone and taking selfies and fluff pop culture that there is no foundation to even build a relationship around. The second is the person who you can have an interesting conversation with on many topics but once they find out you're a software engineer or have another job that they assume is well paying (regardless of how you dress or live) all they become interested in is finding how to take money out of your wallet. Literally trying to push buttons as if you're an ATM machine. When I date people of similar education backgrounds similar work experience and socioeconomic levels it's totally different. It's a totally new set of problems but it actually gives the hope of someone to have a long-term relationship with. Because they have their own money and they don't need constant affirmations from their glowing rectangle. One other thing that I have discovered from traveling the world is that it's not like this in all cultures. Especially having traveled around Southeast Asia there are many women of all ages that are seeking to better their lifestyle and it's a natural assumption that when you were a tourist there you're probably better off than they are financially. Unlike the people in my neighborhood though they are willing to engage in an actual relationship in order to better their financial status. They understand the concept of either marrying into it or being a long-term partner in a relationship to get that financial advantage.

MrWiffles 5y ago
Just out of curiosity, where are you located that you've had that experience? It's not a mirror-image of mine, but it's fairly close. I'm in El Paso, TX (US). In my area, there are almost no professionals of any field, let alone software engineering. You've got doctors and lawyers, but that's about it. So language barriers aside (most speak English and Spanish here but you do run into a fair amount of Spanish-only), the biggest hurdle I run into relating to people - not even dating, just general day-to-day stuff - is education and IQ. Most are just very, very poorly educated at best. And yeah there's a lot of addiction to vapid pop-culture nonsense as well, which presents an immediate barrier to me because...ugh, no thanks. But ultimately, most people just have a lackluster ability to grasp even the most basic of things (I had to explain who the Romans were once, I kid you not). Not saying they're all stupid or anything, far from it. I think it's a socioeconomic problem, caused by generational poverty being a barrier to higher education. There's a university here (UTEP), but it's way out of reach for easily 80-90% of people born and raised locally. Those who do go there leave the area almost immediately (and I can't blame them, I will too, and soon). Damn shame, too. There are some really nice, big-hearted folks in this town and they deserve a fair shake.
- elmerfud 5y ago
  I live in Des Moines Iowa. I would say our experiences are pretty similar based on how you describe it. I also agree I don't find that any of these people are stupid or anything like that they just are stuck in a, I don't know the right word, socioeconomic rut that they either don't know how or have no desire to dig themselves out of. And some of them are actually quite intelligent I know a couple of people their ability to learn new information to memorize it to regurgitate it and to postulate assumptions based upon that previous knowledge would make excellent engineers but they have no desire to do that. They want the money and they want to increase their status but they think they'll do it by winning the lotto or finding a billionaire who will take them away on their yacht or something insane like that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
JustLurking2022 5y ago
So you're saying that you miss the fact that people in other cultures are better at pretending to care about you? Personally, not sure if that's better or worse.

cafard 5y ago

When have the rich not largely married/mated among the rich?

scotuswroteus 5y ago
that's covered in the article lol
- cafard 5y ago
  I think the article skips a few points. It was once much more common for women to skip college or marry without finishing college. (George H.W. Bush did not marry a college graduate, but he didn't marry Cinderella.) It was also more common for women to marry shortly after finishing college and drop out of the work force. Also, focusing on labor earnings ignores family wealth. [edit: added last sentence]

strikelaserclaw 5y ago

wonder if IQ will get concentrated at the top too, i see smart people move to a few cities and marry other people in their profession or a similar profession. Back in the day before social media and such i feel that dating wasn't so selective (He/She needs to have X,Y,Z), so people had more diversity in who they married and this spread the genes around more.

contingencies 5y ago
IIRC IQ has lost a lot of validity as a metric. TLDR: it's basically a back-slapping measure of how western-traditional-logic-problem-educated you are, and therefore a great proxy for success in life (because if you had the time to follow logic problems as a kid in a developed society or near proxy thereof, then you probably had good nurture and good resources).
- exolymph 5y ago
  This isn't true, IQ is one of the most predictive measurements.
  - sirspacey 5y ago
    The outcome of the study of IQ was that it was not predictive of success https://nautil.us/your-iq-matters-less-than-you-think-7708/ https://nautil.us/your-iq-matters-less-than-you-think-7708/
- strikelaserclaw 5y ago
  I used IQ in a vague way as a proxy for sustained focus, ability to see patterns, mental energy etc... No one can argue that people that are higher in these traits have a higher chance at being what we consider "intelligent"
- sandstrom 5y ago
  People say this, but there is little research supporting this claim. On the contrary, the past few decades of research has shown that IQ is (1) hereditary, 0.5-0.8 correlation, depending on the study and (2) increasingly important to navigate a modern, complex society. For example, this paper is a pretty good summary: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289697900143 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602... Here is a good popular science article on the same subject: https://quillette.com/2018/08/25/the-dangers-of-ignoring-cognitive-inequality/ https://quillette.com/2018/08/25/the-dangers-of-ignoring-cog...

JustLurking2022 5y ago

While not the specific focus of this article, I found that having a successful spouse helped both of us earn more - we always had a reasonably accurate baseline to compare our progress/earnings against and know when it was time to make a move.

mgh2 5y ago

Related, by the same author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30692364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30692364

rs999gti 5y ago

So should rich people be able to marry two spouses, with at least one being at a lower income level than themselves?

0ldskool 5y ago
Bring back harems where the well off have multiple spouses? I feel like the way inequality is going some places might end up like this or already are. Its usually religion that prevents this. Would sugar babies fall into this category (pay for a relationship and them using that money for school). Maybe a slightly more modern approach would be group relationships, each person specializing in a different life area/role? Anybody watch The Expanse? The problem with such setups is that they are often rife with abuse in some form or another. The person who controls the money controls the group/harem. Isn't this how the world worked before women gained voting rights and ability to work in the labor force. Seems the best way to have an equal partner relationship is to make similar amounts of money with similar amounts of education.

aaron695 5y ago

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

Restricting the dataset to only the top 10% and bottom 10% while ignoring the middle 80% seems a bit suspicious.