Video summary
The discussion centers on the evolving dynamics of gender pay gaps and their impact on sexual preferences among high-income women. In major metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, and Seattle, young women now frequently out-earn young men, with the gap widening to around 31 or 32 percent in some contexts. This economic shift has sparked debate regarding whether wealthier women have reduced their preference for resourceful partners. While evolutionary psychology initially predicted that as women became financially independent, their desire for wealthy mates would diminish, real-world data suggests a more complex picture. High-achieving women often still prefer partners who are economically successful, though the nature of this preference changes based on individual standards and availability.
A key distinction emerges between stated preferences and revealed behavior in the dating market. Although high-income women may express a strong desire for wealthy partners, they often end up dating men who earn slightly less than themselves. This discrepancy is not necessarily due to a lack of interest in resources but rather reflects the scarcity of equally successful men at their level, a phenomenon sometimes likened to the "tall girl problem." Furthermore, these women tend to have elevated standards across all traits, including physical attractiveness and shared values, meaning that while their absolute preference for wealth remains high, its relative weight among other criteria might decrease. Essentially, wealthy women maintain high standards overall, making it difficult to find partners who meet those rigorous benchmarks in every category.
The conversation also touches on the role of perfectionism in shaping these preferences. Individuals who have cultivated a life of high achievement often project similar expectations onto their partners, seeking perfection not just in themselves but in those around them. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle where pushing oneself to an elite level leads to seeking equally exceptional partners, which can be net negative if the pursuit of perfection becomes unreasonable. Despite the initial predictions that economic independence would fundamentally alter mate selection strategies, the evidence shows that high-achieving women simply raise their baseline for everyone involved. They do not abandon the preference for resources but rather integrate it into a broader set of demanding criteria that reflect their own successful lives and ambitions.
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Going back to the the sort of inequality
thing, what is the state of the gender
pay gap in big cities now? Cuz I saw
some data been for a while it was 29
that women were out earning men by about
a thousand pounds. I think now it's up
to 31, 32. Does anyone know this?
>> I don't know the exact numbers, but I do
know that in a lot of cities it's
reversed and that um
young women are earning more than young
men.
>> Yeah, major metro areas in the US. So
New York, DC, Boston, LA, and Seattle as
well. I don't know the state of Austin,
but it wouldn't surprise me if Austin
had the
same pattern as well.
>> For under 30s.
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> I think it's squeaking into the 31s, 32s
now. And that's what's going to be
really interesting. Like yeah, maybe
you're right and we've managed to
preference for resourceful partners has
reduced
as women have gotten richer. There was
some studies a little while ago, Vincent
Harinam
put this one out in his paper from like
what is article from like six years ago
that suggested that very high-powered
career women had an increased preference
for more high-powered men. So ambitious
people desire more ambitious partners.
>> Yeah.
>> Specifically women to men of the
uh
effect didn't reverse.
But it seems that what you're suggesting
here maybe for the middle bit of the
bell curve, perhaps when you get to the
top 10% of hyper ambitious people, they
that somehow flips because they have
they've warped so much of their sense of
self-worth around ambition that
inevitably it's going to bleed into what
they find sexually attractive too or the
desirable in a partner or maybe that
there's such an outlier that they breach
some threshold of being able to talk to
the normies about what they're going to
You know what I mean? Like all of these
things like an elite athlete would would
probably be good if their partner at
least understands how the game of
American football's played.
>> Yeah.
>> I think I think you can take our the
gender economic inequality findings of
ours to the bank because they're
consistent with the cross-cultural
literature. The income finding is very
interesting, but it's matched with the
cross-sectional literature on
individuals.
>> know what any of this means.
>> Okay.
So, the it is true that higher income
women
in So, in our experiment, there was a
broad
like they they were less interested in
mating up economically. So, higher
income women less interest in mating up.
Um
but in it's true also that in the wild,
higher income women tend to still have
strong mate preferences for resources.
>> Like what you see in the real world is
like high-achieving, highly educated,
high-income women tend to marry men who
are still doing at least as well as they
are.
>> So, there's a couple caveats on that
broad pattern. Um one thing that's
interesting that comes from the social
role theorists is that they say, "Well,
richer women are qualitatively different
from poorer women in that they
they they are they are different in lots
of ways. And so, to say, "Oh, they're
different in this way." It it's not
really controlled. That's part of the
reason we did an experiment, by the way.
Um but then also
richer women have stronger mate
preferences in general. Like in Coyomas'
research, in Loos' research, they want
hotter guys, too. And and in fact
>> going on there?
>> Well, the
I mean
I I
>> There's an old David Buss study that
literally said like attractive women
want it all.
>> Yeah.
>> Like that was the title.
>> But rich women all rich women also want
it all. And I think that part of it is
that people who are
>> you're [ __ ]
>> Yeah, people who are good at people who
are good at getting stuff probably are
confident in their ability to get stuff.
People who are, you know,
high-achieving. I think that it's very
like my older sister is a successful
banker. If she has a preference for a
guy who's doing well economically, it's
like that's a very realistic preference.
Whereas for a woman who's working at a
gas station, that's a very unrealistic
mate preference. it's then also, when
you look at the ratios of preference as
opposed to just the absolute preference,
I do have to kind of tip my hat to the
social role people a little bit on that,
where it's like it does seem that even
though richer women have a stronger mate
preference for resources, they have a
lower relative mate preference for
resources um in loose data, for example.
So, it's like
it's like I want So, it's like um you
talk to I'll put it in a kind of
uh
imaginary example. It's like you talk to
a poor woman, exemplary poor woman, and
she says, "You know, I kind of want a
rich guy. And I kind of want a hot guy."
And then you talk to an exemplary rich
woman, and it's like, "I really want a
rich guy." And you say, "Oh, it doesn't
match the thing." But then they say,
"But I really, really want a hot guy,
and I also really want a guy who's going
to take care of the kids, and I also
want a guy who shares my same political
beliefs." And it's like, "Oh, man, so
they just have higher standards across
the board." And as a relative
preference, it seems to decline. Also, I
would say that there's the
So, it increases absolutely, but then
maybe decreases relatively. So, it's
like
Yeah, so it's like if I They're they're
they're maybe able to relax that
preference relatively.
Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying.
It doesn't drop away, though. And I
think they used to predict that it
would. That it's just there because
women are poor
Yeah, and as much as there's a winner
Yeah, and as much as there's a winner on
that bickering between the Evo Psychs
and the and the social psychologists,
the Evo Psychs won that one because it
was pretty clearly predicted, like,
"Hey, richer women are going to have a
reduced mate preference for resources."
And then they tested it in a bunch of
different ways, and it it didn't. But
there are some caveats, yeah.
>> What's fascinating here is it's just
people with high standards have high
standards. The high standards that got
them to be valedictorian, the high
standards that got them to get a
high-powered degree, and then a good
career, and then to work at it to get
promotion, and to make it to C-suite or
become partner. And then when it came to
choosing a partner, they have high
standards high standards high standards.
Mhm. It's
like just
kind of like it's the sort of thing that
your parents would understand.
>> high standards for them themselves and
their own
uh accomplishments then also for
partners as well.
>> this with uh the research on
perfectionism that perfectionists
it comes in at least two broad buckets,
but maybe three, I think actually. Uh
the first one is perfectionism around
your own behavior and your own
standards, but the other is
perfectionism for the people around
you's behavior and standards, too. This
is one of the problems that
perfectionists have built themselves
into a more perfect life. It's not
one-to-one. Might actually be net
negative, but you have pushed yourself
unreasonably to raise your standard of
living. And then as you become more of
an outlier in terms of your
perfectionism in your own life, you look
for more perfectionism from a higher
baseline, which is your new one, in the
people around you.
And that happens more on average from
people that are perfectionists.
>> Yeah, interesting.
>> Mhm.
>> Another thing I'll say on that is that
the there is also the caveat of the I
mean I I actually really would love to
hear Steve's thoughts on revealed
preferences stated versus revealed. If
we can if we can gently steer the
conversation if I can ask the captain of
the ship
>> left turn.
>> to to to to steer
I've actually wanted to hear his
opinion. Uh but
>> [laughter]
>> there is the uh there is the
there is a oh this is going to be
terrible in my head, but there is the
um
revealed element where it's like if you
look at women now today and and this is
from the Institute of Family Studies
where they it's kind of it's a kind of a
way of visualizing the data more than
anything, but they bucketed uh different
income brackets. And in the top
20% of women like the top quintile, uh
they are already on average are dating
down very slightly economically.
>> quintiles of men are doing the same
thing.
>> Yeah, they're dating up.
>> dating up. They're dating up. They're
dating up.
>> So there's this really weird kind of
thing there where it's like um you can
say in the abstract and and I'm I'm
teeing you up for some thoughts on
stated versus revealed, but you can say
in the abstract, "Oh, richer women, they
have a stronger mate preference to mate
up, let's say." But then you see what
they're doing, and it's like, "Oh,
they're less likely to do it." So, it's
like, what is what is stronger mean in
that context?
>> necessarily the fact that they um on
average
uh uh going with somebody who's somewhat
earning somewhat less than them
isn't necessarily cuz that's what they
prefer.
>> It's what they're what's available.
>> There's not at those kind of echelons,
there's just not much available
at all.
>> Tall girl problem.
>> Tall girl problem. Yeah, exactly.
>> Okay, so if if there's a shortage of
tall men, then you'll settle for a guy
who's not as
>> Yeah, like tall women are probably also
less likely to
>> Yeah.
>> Exactly. Not cuz they prefer shorter
men. So, I don't think that's revealing
a preference necessarily.
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