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To play devil’s advocate: The study found that people who are willing to marry for money at any price would on average require $1.5 million (in 2007 dollars).
by fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
To play devil’s advocate:
The study found that people who are willing to marry for money at any price would on average require $1.5 million (in 2007 dollars). Most people answering the survey don’t have option to marry for that kind of money (it’s roughly the 95th percentile for family wealth) and the vast majority of actual marriages don’t involve a wealth transfer of that size. So the survey is really telling us that most people don’t marry for money, but maybe they would if you dangled the opportunity of a lifetime in front of them. It’s telling people to imagine themselves inside the plot of a Lifetime movie and asking them how they would behave.
- jfim 4y ago$1.5 million in 2007 dollars is about $2 million in 2022 dollars. In the Bay area, with a FAANG income, that's somewhat within reach. It's a pretty good point though that it's just a hypothetical survey, and that most people imagining that opportunity don't actually have it, so it's more of a fantasy kind of thing.
- strix_varius 4y agoIt's not as far-fetched as it sounds. Take a look at their specific California examples: http://www.realworlddivorce.com/California http://www.realworlddivorce.com/California Surgeon making $275k ends up on the hook for $87,600 annually, which totals $1.5 million over 18 years.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y agoGranted, surgeons and FANG engineers can build up millions in wealth, but they are nowhere near the median person in the US. Romantic partnerships tend to be class-segregated, so most people don’t have the option of marrying up like that. I speculate that if you stratify they survey responses by income, you’d find that people of X income are going to require 10X+ for a money marriage.