15 ms·

An Economic Model of the Rise in Premarital Sex and Its De-Stigmatization [pdf]

86 points by nkurz 12y ago

erodingvar 12y ago
> In 1900, only 6% of US women had engaged in premarital sex by age 19; The number is now 75%. Sad. Are there any countries that are closer to the 1900 number today?
dj-wonk 12y ago
> There are 14 parameter values to determine, {β, ϕ, ζ, γ, δ, θ, ι, ω, μ, α, τ, λ, η, σ}. Using Greek letters may follow in the economics tradition, but it is a pain for humans who need to match up symbols with concepts.
- michaelchisari 12y ago
  Using easily readable/recognizable variable names is one thing computer programmers got right. It's always frustrating to read mathematic or economic models that use symbols instead. I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but I haven't heard it yet.
  - jacobolus 12y ago
    The reason is that it makes everything much more compact, which facilitates symbolic manipulation by reducing the space that symbols take, so that the differences between each step can be easily spotted, and in particular so that it’s easier to write down each step, which is especially important when working with pencil and paper. The problem with short cryptic symbols comes when there are so many symbols that it’s hard to keep them straight, when symbol uses fall far from their definitions, when the same symbol is overloaded to mean different things, or when the author’s and the reader’s cultural conventions about symbols are different. In a programming context, short variable names are extremely handy when either (a) the scope of the variable is limited, or (b) there’s a strong convention associating the name with the meaning, so that someone seeing the name knows immediately what it represents. For example, writing pi instead of circle_constant, writing i instead of loop_index, etc. tends to make code more readable rather than less.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      Further, there are often conventions as to which symbols are used in which context. For example, \phi and \psi (with subscripts) are commonly used as a basis/frame for a vector space, \delta commonly represents a difference of two quantities, \rho is typically a density and \gamma is a decay rate. (These examples are fairly physics-specific, but other fields have similar conventions.) So if notation is well chosen, the reader doesn't need to remember as much unique notation as one might expect.
  - saraid216 12y ago
    I've read some computation-heavy processing using long-form variable names in code and it's not actually readable. For parameter passing, long-form names make sense. For actual math? Not so much.
  - SamReidHughes 12y ago
    If you use the symbols that are used, frequently, you get better at using them. It's much like the way if you play a round of golf at a course that you're unfamiliar with, it's a lot harder to recall a shot-by-shot recap of your round than if you play the course regularly. The mind builds little registers for keeping track of the meanings of Greek letters if you use those little friends often enough.
    - PaulJulius 12y ago
      I find your choice of analogy a little amusing. In these circles, I think more people would have significant exposure to dense mathematical notation than significant familiarity to a particular golf course.
      - SamReidHughes 12y ago
        Yeah, well, yeah. It just happens to be the only way that I've measurably and comparatively observed this sort of memory phenomenon in my personal experience.
  - kszx 12y ago
    Writing out long variable names while working on a mathematical model is like writing the same text with ten times the number of characters. It's neither elegant nor efficient. Imagine you're playing around with variables and model configurations in complex mathematical terms, but one formula stretches over two pages and you always need to cross out and rewrite whole words.
    - gcb0 12y ago
      we're not taking about homework but published paper. i don't publish code at conferences with var x, j, i, ii, iii, i2, h, ji... even though i find it pretty convenient when writing prototypes. math people are just sloppy :)
- RockyMcNuts 12y ago
  There are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. - somebody
  - avn2109 12y ago
    * somebody who knew what he was talking about.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  Are you suggesting Greek letters are not suitable for human comprehension.
  - oh_sigh 12y ago
    Presumably the poster would have about as much as a problem if the author picked the first 14 letters of the English alphabet.also, it is not a given that everyone knows the green alphabet, and it is harder to correlate symbols when you don't have familiarity and know the names of them.
    - discodave 12y ago
      I'm not sure that I would understand the green alphabet.
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
      If you're going to be the kind of person who reads technical papers, you should also be the kind of person who knows the Greek alphabet, it's only got 24 letters and not all of them are generally used.
    - Natsu 12y ago
      Just for the record, those aren't the first letters the Greek alphabet, nor are they in order, given that alpha is shortly after omega and both are near the center of the list. I assume they follow some standard of usage in context, but I don't know enough about economics to know what they're normally used to represent.
- kszx 12y ago
  It makes sense to use Greek letters for exogenous parameters so that we can use Latin letters for endogenously determined variables. The distinction between capitalized and uncapitalized letters is useful for a similar reason. This makes economic formulae much more readable.
  - dj-wonk 12y ago
    How would one go about learning this convention (and others like it), in the off chance that it was not completely obvious to the reader?
zxcvvcxz 12y ago
Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increasing divorce rates be explained similarly by risk? There is much less risk of divorcing now, women are about as financially independent as men, and it could be argued there is a greater safety net for single parents (e.g. [1]). This is interesting because it would imply that in the natural state of things, men's primary family purpose is/was as a provider/protector of some sort. So as that need diminishes, perhaps it shouldn't be the norm to expect everyone to get married. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_Families http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_...
- discodave 12y ago
  I agree with you but would quibble on one thing "women are about as financially independent as men"... I would say that women are about 70-80% as financially independent as men, due to the gender pay gap. That gap is even higher if you consider women's under representation in high paying jobs (e.g. tech). However... That's light years better the past when women were essentially considered to be the property of their father or husband.
  - chadzawistowski 12y ago
    If you're going to name figures I think you ought to cite sources rather than just guessing.
    - innguest 12y ago
      He's alluding to the old 77% canard which has already been debunked. There's no pay gap between genders, the pay gap is between women who never married and women who have married at some point regardless of present status. Something else he gets wrong is this "under representation in high paying jobs" canard. That's bad approximation again. The under-representation is in thing-oriented jobs versus relationship-oriented jobs. In Sweden, in all their equality, we still see mostly male engineers and mostly female nurses. It just happens that thing-oriented jobs pay more.
detcader 12y ago
The paradigm of woman as private property has been losing popularity, obviously. We have to recognize that the "newer" constructions of womanhood are not necessarily positive.
- obstinate 12y ago
  You seem to be implying that woman-as-property was better than what we have today. Presumably that is not what you meant. Perhaps an edit to clarify?
  - Fdndjxjxr 12y ago
    At the risk of being lambasted as a misogynist, I think he's referring to the current trend towards an informal return to harems, where a majority of women court a minority of men, and vice-versa. That just has to do with how we humans are naturally polygamous creatures and the sexual revolution has gotten rid of a lot of the societal factors keeping people in strict monogamy.
    - cbd1984 12y ago
      > strict monogamy Honored more in the breach than the observance, in many households.
    - anentropic 12y ago
      Is this a real thing or just your fevered imagination?
    - obstinate 12y ago
      I wouldn't lambaste you for misogyny so much as complete inability to observe the reality around you. Can't think of any other explanation for your belief that the minority of men are able to have successful romantic relationships.
curiously 12y ago
Female empowerment seems to share high correlation with the availability of contraceptives. For instance, countries where it is widely available, there is strong women's right and advocacy whereas in other countries, for religious or societal reasons, seems to lack it and women enjoy the same level of freedom and power in the 19th century. This newfound glory of the female seems to have devastating impact on traditional familial values, where countries like South Korea and Japan have extremely low birth rates and marriages. In countries where fertility rate is not as severely impacted, divorce rate seems extremely high, leading to large number of offsprings raised with a single mom (as most custody ends up this way) and no male authority figure (shown to have negative effect on male offsprings). The single father who bears the grunt of the financial burden in low socioeconomic classes face higher chance of incarceration, harm and substance abuse. The single mom who make the living now must spend less time with her kids which has negative effects.
vixen99 12y ago
So how will the model be used? Isn't this important given that the conclusions in this paper could be stated by anyone thinking about the subject for ten minutes? Abstracts usually tell us about the paper and the reasons for conducting the research. This one does not.
lordnacho 12y ago
I wonder if there's a similar thesis about why homosexuality is now well accepted in many societies. In Denmark for instance they pride themselves on being at the front of the sexual revolution as well as being free and open about gays. The change also happened at roughly the same time as De-Stigmatization. I can't quite make out the analogy though. Why would there be an economic disincentive to be gay in the past, and how has it changed?
- theorique 12y ago
  The historical social stigma against homosexuality, and the consequent high risk of losing your job or social position, probably kept many homosexuals in the closet who would have been open in a more permissive time. Nowadays, since nobody is fired (at least in the West) for homosexual activities or relationships, the economic penalty is eliminated.
  - kefka 12y ago
    My state, Indiana, just made it legal specifically to fire or demote people because of their LGBTQ preference. That was in challenge to the recent Supreme court case regarding Hobby Lobby.
    - theorique 12y ago
      Point taken. I should qualify my statement to be "many parts of the West", then. It's pretty unlikely that a person would be fired for homosexuality in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, for example.
      - kefka 12y ago
        It wasn't really a point; it was more a warning to stay away. And if you're here (Like I am), try to get out.

86 points by nkurz 12y ago

> In 1900, only 6% of US women had engaged in premarital sex by age 19; The number is now 75%. Sad. Are there any countries that are closer to the 1900 number today?

dj-wonk 12y ago

> There are 14 parameter values to determine, {β, ϕ, ζ, γ, δ, θ, ι, ω, μ, α, τ, λ, η, σ}. Using Greek letters may follow in the economics tradition, but it is a pain for humans who need to match up symbols with concepts.

michaelchisari 12y ago
Using easily readable/recognizable variable names is one thing computer programmers got right. It's always frustrating to read mathematic or economic models that use symbols instead. I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but I haven't heard it yet.
- jacobolus 12y ago
  The reason is that it makes everything much more compact, which facilitates symbolic manipulation by reducing the space that symbols take, so that the differences between each step can be easily spotted, and in particular so that it’s easier to write down each step, which is especially important when working with pencil and paper. The problem with short cryptic symbols comes when there are so many symbols that it’s hard to keep them straight, when symbol uses fall far from their definitions, when the same symbol is overloaded to mean different things, or when the author’s and the reader’s cultural conventions about symbols are different. In a programming context, short variable names are extremely handy when either (a) the scope of the variable is limited, or (b) there’s a strong convention associating the name with the meaning, so that someone seeing the name knows immediately what it represents. For example, writing pi instead of circle_constant, writing i instead of loop_index, etc. tends to make code more readable rather than less.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Further, there are often conventions as to which symbols are used in which context. For example, \phi and \psi (with subscripts) are commonly used as a basis/frame for a vector space, \delta commonly represents a difference of two quantities, \rho is typically a density and \gamma is a decay rate. (These examples are fairly physics-specific, but other fields have similar conventions.) So if notation is well chosen, the reader doesn't need to remember as much unique notation as one might expect.
- saraid216 12y ago
  I've read some computation-heavy processing using long-form variable names in code and it's not actually readable. For parameter passing, long-form names make sense. For actual math? Not so much.
- SamReidHughes 12y ago
  If you use the symbols that are used, frequently, you get better at using them. It's much like the way if you play a round of golf at a course that you're unfamiliar with, it's a lot harder to recall a shot-by-shot recap of your round than if you play the course regularly. The mind builds little registers for keeping track of the meanings of Greek letters if you use those little friends often enough.
  - PaulJulius 12y ago
    I find your choice of analogy a little amusing. In these circles, I think more people would have significant exposure to dense mathematical notation than significant familiarity to a particular golf course.
    - SamReidHughes 12y ago
      Yeah, well, yeah. It just happens to be the only way that I've measurably and comparatively observed this sort of memory phenomenon in my personal experience.
- kszx 12y ago
  Writing out long variable names while working on a mathematical model is like writing the same text with ten times the number of characters. It's neither elegant nor efficient. Imagine you're playing around with variables and model configurations in complex mathematical terms, but one formula stretches over two pages and you always need to cross out and rewrite whole words.
  - gcb0 12y ago
    we're not taking about homework but published paper. i don't publish code at conferences with var x, j, i, ii, iii, i2, h, ji... even though i find it pretty convenient when writing prototypes. math people are just sloppy :)
RockyMcNuts 12y ago
There are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. - somebody
- avn2109 12y ago
  * somebody who knew what he was talking about.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Are you suggesting Greek letters are not suitable for human comprehension.
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Presumably the poster would have about as much as a problem if the author picked the first 14 letters of the English alphabet.also, it is not a given that everyone knows the green alphabet, and it is harder to correlate symbols when you don't have familiarity and know the names of them.
  - discodave 12y ago
    I'm not sure that I would understand the green alphabet.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
    If you're going to be the kind of person who reads technical papers, you should also be the kind of person who knows the Greek alphabet, it's only got 24 letters and not all of them are generally used.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Just for the record, those aren't the first letters the Greek alphabet, nor are they in order, given that alpha is shortly after omega and both are near the center of the list. I assume they follow some standard of usage in context, but I don't know enough about economics to know what they're normally used to represent.
kszx 12y ago
It makes sense to use Greek letters for exogenous parameters so that we can use Latin letters for endogenously determined variables. The distinction between capitalized and uncapitalized letters is useful for a similar reason. This makes economic formulae much more readable.
- dj-wonk 12y ago
  How would one go about learning this convention (and others like it), in the off chance that it was not completely obvious to the reader?

zxcvvcxz 12y ago

Interesting stuff, it's clear from this economics perspective that sexual behavior is tightly coupled to risks and societal influence. As birth control became more available, the risk of premarital sex went down dramatically. I think societal norms are slowly catching up with this, hence why "we" (i.e. Western nations) are more liberal now than say 70 years ago. Here's a related thought experiment: could ever increasing divorce rates be explained similarly by risk? There is much less risk of divorcing now, women are about as financially independent as men, and it could be argued there is a greater safety net for single parents (e.g. [1]). This is interesting because it would imply that in the natural state of things, men's primary family purpose is/was as a provider/protector of some sort. So as that need diminishes, perhaps it shouldn't be the norm to expect everyone to get married. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_Families http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Assistance_for_Needy_...

discodave 12y ago
I agree with you but would quibble on one thing "women are about as financially independent as men"... I would say that women are about 70-80% as financially independent as men, due to the gender pay gap. That gap is even higher if you consider women's under representation in high paying jobs (e.g. tech). However... That's light years better the past when women were essentially considered to be the property of their father or husband.
- chadzawistowski 12y ago
  If you're going to name figures I think you ought to cite sources rather than just guessing.
  - innguest 12y ago
    He's alluding to the old 77% canard which has already been debunked. There's no pay gap between genders, the pay gap is between women who never married and women who have married at some point regardless of present status. Something else he gets wrong is this "under representation in high paying jobs" canard. That's bad approximation again. The under-representation is in thing-oriented jobs versus relationship-oriented jobs. In Sweden, in all their equality, we still see mostly male engineers and mostly female nurses. It just happens that thing-oriented jobs pay more.

detcader 12y ago

The paradigm of woman as private property has been losing popularity, obviously. We have to recognize that the "newer" constructions of womanhood are not necessarily positive.

obstinate 12y ago
You seem to be implying that woman-as-property was better than what we have today. Presumably that is not what you meant. Perhaps an edit to clarify?
- Fdndjxjxr 12y ago
  At the risk of being lambasted as a misogynist, I think he's referring to the current trend towards an informal return to harems, where a majority of women court a minority of men, and vice-versa. That just has to do with how we humans are naturally polygamous creatures and the sexual revolution has gotten rid of a lot of the societal factors keeping people in strict monogamy.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > strict monogamy Honored more in the breach than the observance, in many households.
  - anentropic 12y ago
    Is this a real thing or just your fevered imagination?
  - obstinate 12y ago
    I wouldn't lambaste you for misogyny so much as complete inability to observe the reality around you. Can't think of any other explanation for your belief that the minority of men are able to have successful romantic relationships.

curiously 12y ago

Female empowerment seems to share high correlation with the availability of contraceptives. For instance, countries where it is widely available, there is strong women's right and advocacy whereas in other countries, for religious or societal reasons, seems to lack it and women enjoy the same level of freedom and power in the 19th century. This newfound glory of the female seems to have devastating impact on traditional familial values, where countries like South Korea and Japan have extremely low birth rates and marriages. In countries where fertility rate is not as severely impacted, divorce rate seems extremely high, leading to large number of offsprings raised with a single mom (as most custody ends up this way) and no male authority figure (shown to have negative effect on male offsprings). The single father who bears the grunt of the financial burden in low socioeconomic classes face higher chance of incarceration, harm and substance abuse. The single mom who make the living now must spend less time with her kids which has negative effects.

vixen99 12y ago

So how will the model be used? Isn't this important given that the conclusions in this paper could be stated by anyone thinking about the subject for ten minutes? Abstracts usually tell us about the paper and the reasons for conducting the research. This one does not.

lordnacho 12y ago

I wonder if there's a similar thesis about why homosexuality is now well accepted in many societies. In Denmark for instance they pride themselves on being at the front of the sexual revolution as well as being free and open about gays. The change also happened at roughly the same time as De-Stigmatization. I can't quite make out the analogy though. Why would there be an economic disincentive to be gay in the past, and how has it changed?

theorique 12y ago
The historical social stigma against homosexuality, and the consequent high risk of losing your job or social position, probably kept many homosexuals in the closet who would have been open in a more permissive time. Nowadays, since nobody is fired (at least in the West) for homosexual activities or relationships, the economic penalty is eliminated.
- kefka 12y ago
  My state, Indiana, just made it legal specifically to fire or demote people because of their LGBTQ preference. That was in challenge to the recent Supreme court case regarding Hobby Lobby.
  - theorique 12y ago
    Point taken. I should qualify my statement to be "many parts of the West", then. It's pretty unlikely that a person would be fired for homosexuality in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, for example.
    - kefka 12y ago
      It wasn't really a point; it was more a warning to stay away. And if you're here (Like I am), try to get out.