Why There Are No Girls In San Francisco #14: Gender Ratio

[archerships]

Via Why There Are No Girls In San Francisco

In 2004 the research firm Teasley published findings that ranked San Francisco as the best place to find a rich, single man in the United States, as measured by San Francisco’s single male “Golden Ratio” of 140%, and specifically accounting for the large percentage of gays (which according to the most reliable figures is considerably less than people tend to believe at about 15%). Similarly a 2004 article in the magazine San Francisco estimated that unmarried straight 20 to 44-year-old men in San Francisco (not including Silicon Valley or Man Jose) outnumbered their female counterparts by about 12,000.

Yet two anecdotal curiosities give us pause: first, an informal study of male opinion and the SF night-life scene describes a ratio that is FAR worse than even the data suggests. Second, and more puzzling, there is widely-shared belief among females that very few eligible/desirable men live in San Francisco.

A study published in in 2007 by two English psychologists (who are better known for a different study that showed the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms may shed some light. The study looked at marriage patterns in the United States and an interesting trend appeared: unbalanced gender ratios did not seem to problematize proportionally. The research showed that as the sex ratio augmented in favor of women, at first, as you would expect, the women simply turned fussy and went for richer and more powerful men. But at a certain point a curious thing happened: the amount of socioeconomic status a guy needed to get girl increased way more than the math would predict. Specifically when the ratio was tilted in favor of women by 10%, low status men became not 10% less likely to get a girl but 200-300% less likely and high status men 30% less likely.

Comments

[pasquin.livejournal.com]

Does this explain your dating woes?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Woes?

[danlyke.livejournal.com]

"Whoah!"s.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

"In other words, increase the number of males in a system too much and the number of females interested in pairing up GOES DOWN, due to some mysterious psychological trigger. Women won't pick and choose, they won't choose at all."

It's not really all that mysterious. Nor is it limited to mate pairing. It's a common phenomenon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis) that was explored rather extensively in a best-selling pop-sci book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=14872453).

[ersigh.livejournal.com]

As a female living in the Bay Area... all these things you keep posting seem so far removed from reality...

I suppose that's just further proof that I don't fit into any sort of mold except the mold that doesn't really fit anywhere very well.

[writerspleasure.livejournal.com]

there's obviously sorting going on: why the women are willing to live in such an unbalanced situation - and the men.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for the women, but (at least some of ) the men put up with it because there are few places with as high a concentration of people doing cool things.

[writerspleasure.livejournal.com]

which in turn de-selects for some factors that attractive women will tend to gravitate to.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

I read everything on his blog, and I think mostly he's just trying to be funny, but #9 sounded about right.

(Most of the stuff that's true about SF applies to Seattle as well.)

[crasch.livejournal.com]

#9 rings true to me as well.

[simonfunk.livejournal.com]

Past a point of scarcity, women realize they can get support (often monetary, but other types as well) from more than one guy at time (or in rapid succession), and more relevantly from some passable guy or another any time they want, so they become unavailable for pairing and stick to the more lucrative serial/parallel dating. Once the trend starts, it is a positive feedback loop because the effective ratio is made worse by this shift. At least, that's how it seems to work here in Maui, which has similar ratios. (Also note that 110 men to 100 women may be 20 available men to 10 available woman if there are 90 pairs not in the market. Not sure whether the "single" stats above are meant to mean "available" or just "not married".)