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Do engineers really make better spouses?
- jkot 11y agoThere is age bias. Engineer often change profession once he gets older.
- dwarfcadaver 11y agoMaybe they become bartenders, or pursue a dream of professional dancing...
- jhugg 11y agoIs that broadly true, or are you thinking of software engineers?
- 3pt14159 11y agoBut even so, this amount of skew is way higher than could be explained by that alone.
- QuercusMax 11y agoIs this actually true for engineers in general, or just software/electrical engineers?
- dagw 11y agoReally? My family is full of 50+ year old engineers and I can't think of any engineers that I know that changed careers as they got older. Sure some of them may have taken on more management responsibilities as they got older, but non of them left engineering.
- imgabe 11y agoIf you're thinking of only the 50+ engineers you know, of course those ones haven't changed careers. You'd have to think of some 50+ year old actors or chefs you know and find out if they used to be engineers.
- dagw 11y agoFair point. Let me rephrase. Of everybody I know how's done a late career switch, engineers are extremely underrepresented, to the point I can't think of any. The closet I can come up with is a surveyor, which I suppose counts an engineer in some places. The most common educational backgrounds to lead to a later life career switch in my limited observation is either teaching or banking/finance.
- Igglyboo 11y agoHave any sources for this? My experiences say the complete opposite.
- jmadsen 11y agoWe're like Forestt Gump - dull, but dependable :-)
- ckozlowski 11y agoIf you look at the Myers-Briggs personality types listed at TypeLogic, you'll see for the INTJ type (most often associated with engineering types) as being said to often "Work at" a relationship. This is, I know, a weak argument at best, but I would toss out as something to ponder that perhaps there's a higher incidence of analytic types to dissect and improve their relationship. ...or simply inclined to remain with the status quo. You decide.
- vkjv 11y agoWhile INTJ are most often associated with engineers, most engineers are not. INTJ is pretty rare, I think somewhere around 1%, which would make it only account for roughly 20% of engineers and scientists [citation needed]. Honestly, with money being one of the leading causes of divorce, I would say a reasonable assumption is just that engineers make more of it and are more likely to spend what they do have wisely.
- creshal 11y ago> I would say a reasonable assumption is just that engineers make more of it And have a low chance of suddenly getting laid off, and good chances at quickly finding new employment (at least compared to the vast majority of jobs).
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoIf you look at the Zodiac, most engineers are earth signs, and you know how hard it is to get along with them.
- dhimes 11y agoSo that your point is not lost: http://skepdic.com/myersb.html http://skepdic.com/myersb.html
- ryan-allen 11y agoINFP engineer chiming in. While MBTI is not scientifically credible, nor is Freudian psychoanalysis but it was a big deal in it's time. But hey, you're a fire sign. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and while we're at it, check out the FFM [1], it's got stats and everything! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
- cauterized 11y agoDivorce rates are also linked to income. Engineering is typically a more stable and better paying career than something like dance (given as the counterexample in the article). How much of the difference in divorce rates is attributable to that?
- drpgq 11y agoI wonder if a small part of the dancer/bartender vs engineer situation is that engineers (statistically usually male) often are working mostly with other men. My sister is married to a ballet dancer (who just retired to start studying to become a nurse) and he obviously was in pretty close contact with the opposite sex.
- tormeh 11y agoYeah, those are two occupations where men can pick and choose. I've read somewhere that the relationships where the woman is more attractive than the man are the most stable, because the man feels lucky and will do his utmost to keep the relationship going. These occupations basically increase the man's effective attractiveness by placing him in a dating pool almost devoid of men. I would guess the same is true for male nurses.
- cauterized 11y agoI don't see anything in that article indicating that it applies only to men.
- khill 11y agoIf that was the main factor, the divorce rate for law enforcement would likely be lower as well.
- Ensorceled 11y agoIs law enforcement on the engineering side of the comparison that was just made or the bartender/dancer side? Law enforcement has it's own issues that are quite independent of most other occupations.
- zelos 11y ago"The article also purports that the higher level of communication inherent in engineering jobs may be vital. A healthy communication in a marriage is vital for its survival." Yeah, us software engineers are renowned for our communication skills.
- pconner 11y agoYou do need good communication skills to be an effective software engineer.
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- Fuxy 11y agoIf I had to guess I would say it's the cause of 2 factors: 1.Certain professions attract certain personality types so you won't see a lot of extroverted social people choosing engineering as their profession Extroverts social as they are will always have more options and are less likely to stick around if things get sour. 2.Financial stability means that even if the woman is unhappy in the relationship she is more likely to stick around because it offers stability. Why do you think all the girls always have a boyfriend even if their not that into him. Society tells them you're a looser if you don't have a boyfriend so they always keep one around that doesn't mean their not willing to upgrade though :) Edit: I analogize for generalizing and saying engineers are all men it is mostly true however as pointed out in the comments below not in all cases however I cannot say anything about the reverse case.
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- alanctgardner3 11y agoJust to clarify, in your view women: don't work, can't be engineers, always want to be in a relationship, and are terribly unfaithful and will leave you for somebody with more money? Also, maybe stop calling adult women "girls".
- noir_lord 11y agoThere is also the issue of accessibility to other partners, lots of divorce is the result of infidelity. Engineering has primarily been a male dominated environment and you work alongside other men. Dancers and Bar Tenders (as mentioned in the overview) not so much.
- Disruptive_Dave 11y agoI'm reminded of a scene from Scrubs where Turk tells JD: "I love how kids of divorced parents swear they have the market cornered on family dysfunction...". Point being - I don't view "not divorced" as a significant metric for a successful / happy marriage.
- tormeh 11y agoWith a few exceptions, divorced marriages are all moderately unsuccessful marriages. The truly horrible marriages are the ones that last, but shouldn't.
- emodendroket 11y agoWhile not all unhappy marriages end in divorce, it's at least safe to say that almost all marriages ending in divorce were not happy.
- Disruptive_Dave 11y agoTrue dat.
- RankingMember 11y agoLouis CK has a good bit about this too: "Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it's true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. That would be sad. If two people were married and ... they just had a great thing and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times."
- nashashmi 11y agoI find that male engineers are more difficult to handle by their wives, but if they can be handled, the engineer will hardly ever switch marriages or give up on the one thing that he's got that actually works. There is also stability of income and quality of life that comes into play. When there is stability in the professional field, an engineer has more time to dedicate to his family. That is a gigantic luxury in itself.
- LordKano 11y agoI find that male engineers are more difficult to handle by their wives In general, I have found that intelligent men are more difficult for women to manipulate. Not to say that it doesn't happen or that it's not possible, merely that it's more difficult and when it does happen, it tends to be less effective.
- VLM 11y agoDon't forget the valuable engineering skill of managing your manager, and I think nobody is better at that than engineers. She thinks she's in charge and she thinks she's ordering me to do her bidding, but methodically managed reality makes things somewhat more complicated.
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- andrewstuart2 11y agoSeems pretty obvious to me that the amount of contact with the opposite gender plays a huge part. Since most married couples are heterosexual and Engineering is still dominated by men, so contact of any kind is more rare. On the other hand, dancers and choreographers are very likely to be dancing or choreographing with someone other than their spouse, at a very close physical distance to very fit partners who are nearly always the opposite gender. Jealousy and infidelity probably both play a part there. Same goes for bartenders -- the chances somebody comes to my engineering firm looking for a hot date? Not much, but a bar? That's a little more likely. And lastly, I had to chuckle at agricultural engineers. All I can picture is a guy designing a combine, alone, in the middle of a cornfield. Good luck meeting someone ;-)
- herbig 11y agoI agree. Looking more into the study, massage therapists are up there in divorce rates, as well as "entertainers" which I believe would include actors. The thought I had about agricultural engineers is that they would tend to be much more religiously conservative than other types of engineers.
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- cozuya 11y agoIts a little ironic that the group of people who laugh at "designing a GUI in visual basic to track the killer's IP address" apparently thinks that an agricultural engineer sits in the middle of a cornfield with a bunch of charts on an easel sketching out what piston goes into what shaft... as opposed to, you know, an office.
- andrewstuart2 11y agoThat was just a bit of comedy at the end. I don't actually think that agricultural engineers are likely to have a desk in the middle of a corn field. :-)
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- jay-saint 11y agoHave you walked into the average engineering classroom? I remember my EE class had 90% male population. We were not exactly the coolest or most attractive looking group of guys. I think being grateful to finally meet someone that likes us plays a little role. More seriously, people with engineering backgrounds tend to be analytic and may have made more logical choices prior to marriage, that result in longer lasting relationships. I think that that problem solving mentality could also contribute.
- balabaster 11y agoI think this may be a narrow view of humanity... Everyone's an engineer in one way or another - that's just who we are as people. Just because the stereotype tends towards "engineers" (traditional meaning) being into mechanics, logic, programming, structures etc. doesn't mean that everything can't be viewed this way. The popular guys at school and politicians are social engineers. Footballers look to solve the problem of helping their team to win. Dancers and bartenders look to solve the problem of how to get people to spend/tip the highest amount of money they can. We look to manipulate logic to get machines to do what we want. Others may look to manipulate emotions and perspectives to get people to do what they want - i.e. spend more money, help them earn more commission. It's all engineering in one way or another. So to assume that we make more logical choices prior to marriage that result in longer lasting relationships might be a touch narcissistic. We are no different than anyone else, it's just that we're machine nerds. Other people are people nerds, football nerds, modelling nerds, advertising nerds, music nerds, history nerds, science nerds, food nerds etc. They all have problems they're trying to solve and they all use their problem solving and logical skills to solve them, everyone a nerd in one way or another. To typecast "engineers" (reading between the lines) as desperate does us a disservice. Everyone suffers from self image problems in one way or another - you can thank the media for that courtesy of beauty magazines, wrinkle cream, modeling mags, diet mags, a constant barrage of advertising telling you how to solve body problems and look better to get that hotter partner who also suffers from poor self image problems. You may suffer from poor self image of your perception of your lacking social skills (you really just never had the social training for how to talk with people) but want a hot model type. She may have poor body image because the beauty magazines make her feel ugly and you're all she can get blah blah blah. It's all quite nauseating really. We all live in this Venn diagram of people we're attracted to that would make good life partners. The intersection of which is where we'll find long term relationship satisfaction (I'll refrain from calling that happiness, because the relationship isn't the whole picture of happiness)... but nobody knows where the intersection is and that's the joy of life. When you're not true to your Venn diagram, it's painful. When you are and you find someone who intersects with yours in the right way, it's amazing.
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- lolipop12 11y agoEngineers have engineering degrees. Programming != engineering. Just like MCSE != engineer. Just like 'helpdesk engineer' != engineer.
- emodendroket 11y agoWell, the list does include "computer software engineers."
- swalsh 11y agoWhen I filed my taxes this year, I wrote what was on my business card "Software Engineer". They're self reported titles.
- TheCoelacanth 11y agoThe study in question is from the US where there are very few restrictions on the title "engineer".
- erroneousfunk 11y agoI have a non-software engineering degree. Now I'm a software engineer. What does that make me?
- randomdata 11y agoThe list includes "construction equipment operators". Which degree do you need for that?
- wolfgke 11y agoPerhaps the reason is that only those people who really love the "engineer type of person" will voluntarily marry engineers. ;-)
- JackFr 11y agoWithout having read the original study, it would be worthwhile to see if the there was any attempt to normalize by education level, income and age. It's likely that these are more salient factors and profession is acting as a proxy for these.
- gvb 11y agoWhat is interesting is the last three "engineers" in the list are not engineers-by-education ("white collar") type engineers, they are engineers-by-trade ("blue collar"). The "engineers by trade" typically have a lower education level and probably lower income level. Locomotive engineers and operators 15.77 Stationary engineers and boiler operators 16.99 Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators 18.97 The "blue collar" engineers have a substantially higher divorce rate than most of the "white collar" engineering professions, but the transition by percentages compared to the those preceding them in the list was a lot smoother than I expected.
- VLM 11y agoSome google results: Average CivEng $61K (and average is going to be higher than median), median locomotive engineer $65K. The days of blue collar folks making less than white collar folks as a class has been dead for a couple generations, but the belief lives on...
- robotcookies 11y agoI know that the most common reason cited for divorce is finances. So it may indeed be that higher income professions in general have a lower divorce rate.
- marknutter 11y agoI believe Chris Rock said it best: "A man's only faithful as his options". Engineering is a male dominated field so the opportunity to meet someone you might want to cheat with is far lower than for bartenders or dance instructors. Case close, as far as I'm concerned, let's not let this go to our heads.
- bitL 11y agoI think the main reason is the unpleasant fact that desirable women under 30 like to have fun with attractive men (men that create a lot of interest amongst younger women and can exchange them frequently), which from 90% excludes all engineers. Once the age issues hit women, they look for reliable and stable partners that would consider them a win at their age, for which engineers are prime candidates. Sorry for being cynical, as a photographer I handle a lot of desirable women and talk to them about what is important to them at various ages, and as an engineer can observe this basic dynamics - i.e. a no-longer super attractive woman rejected by most desirable men because her attractiveness falters hooks an aging engineer that had a crush on her while she was in her prime, and stays with him due to a lack of better options and desire for some stability, while he is happy beyond measure to get such a (formerly) attractive spouse.
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- QuadDamaged 11y agoI am an engineer. I used to be married to a dancer. #FML
- aperture 11y agoFrom a quick google search, a link to the study: http://www.sagepub.com/bartol3e/study/articles/Aamodt.pdf http://www.sagepub.com/bartol3e/study/articles/Aamodt.pdf And what looks to be a slideshow presentation on the matter: http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Research%20-%20Forensic/SPCP%202008%20-%20McCoy%20&%20Aamodt%20-%20Divorce%20Rates.pdf http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Research%20-%20Forensic/SPCP%...
- ollysb 11y agoI suspect that engineers also tend to spend a lot less of their time meeting members of the opposite sex.
- damnmachine 11y agoWell I suppose I'm an outlier; software engineer with 100% divorce rate so far. :-p
- 3JPLW 11y agoMan, they took the least-informative numbers from that article. Much more interesting is the difference from their predicted divorce rate (which corrects for race, gender, and income, but not age, unfortunately). Quite a few of the engineering professions have 50-60% the divorce rate of the national average, but after accounting for the above three covariances it's not quite as striking (putting them at 60-90% of expected). Agricultural engineers are still way down at 12% of expected, but they don't list the N for non-LE occupations. Here's the actual article, but it's behind a pay wall. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11896-009-9057-8 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11896-009-9057-8 Google scholar has a link to a publicly accessible version: http://faculty-course.insead.edu/popescu/UDJCore/2010/handouts/Divorce%20Rates.pdf http://faculty-course.insead.edu/popescu/UDJCore/2010/handou...
- kazinator 11y agoThis report looks like someone did a "grep" for the word "engineer". It is not particularly informative to know that boiler operators and construction operators have higher divorce rates than aerospace engineers.
- jldugger 11y agoProbably a linked variable or two here. Thinking aloud: 1. Higher income. Like, substantially higher income. 2. Later marriage. People don't tend to get married in college, and I expect to find that people who get married early have higher divorce rates than average.
- cafard 11y agoVery odd. The list concludes with three skilled trades that share the name engineer, but don't have the same requirements for education and certification as (say) civil or electrical engineering. Now, I expect that the insurance companies see to it that all of those working as locomotive engineers have more rigorous training than many of us working as software engineers, and the same may be true for some operating engineers. Still, the list suggests a certain carelessness.
- anonymous8616 11y agoMy own completely made up supposition: Engineers are more likely to take a pragmatic approach instead of a sentimental "Oh no! He/She doesn't have exactly the same taste in vacations/home decor/friends/whatever, we must not be soulmates after all!"