So remember that “singles map of the United States” I blogged about awhile back? Via Gawker, this guy says it is bunkus because it counted all singles aged 20-64. When you look at people in their 20 and 30s there are actually more unmarried men than women in New York City and around the nation. He has an interactive map that looks at this in detail.
Like for ages 20-34 there are supposedly 30 “extra” single men per 1,000 people in metro NYC, including NJ and northern Pa. At age 35-39 that number shrinks to 10 extra guys, though, and by ages 40-44 it is reversed with 19 extra women. The trend continues from there.
Now, obviously the “NYC-New Jersey-Northern PA area” is a little broad, and the map doesn’t take into account da gays. But still interesting IMHO. I tried to get more precise data from the Census Bureau website and even downloaded an application called “Dataferrett” but it seems they only make available state-level data from the American Community Survey.
I saw this too — very interesting. I’m curious to hear your take on the Guyland phenomenon.
I saw that … my father actually sent me an interview in Inside Higher Ed with “Guyland” author Michael Kimmel as well. He’s absolutely right that younger guys aren’t doing as well as women — something I’ve written about a little bit on this blog as well. (Over the past decade or two there’s been this huge shift — women are now significantly more likely to attend college and go on to postgraduate work, and they get better grades when they do. U.S. women could be earning more than men by 2028, one economist says.)
I haven’t read the book, but there’s also this big MSNBC interview here. I do wonder how much much this stuff could have been said about my generation a decade or so ago (I’m 36; Kimmel deals with 16- to 26-year-olds). On the other hand, I did visit my 26-year-old stepbrother over Labor Day in Boston, who is living a very “Guyland” existence in a bachelor-pad/fratlike house with four other guys and one woman… I never did anything quite like that…. Will ponder it more and try to come up with something smarter to say.
Any singles map really won’t be accurate unless it compares people in the same education bracket. That’s why New York City still seems to be full of single women complaining about the lack of men, even if there *are* more men– because the single women are better-educated, and don’t want to date truck drivers or phone company linemen.
That, and of course because single women just like to complain about the lack of quality men, too.
themofo: it’s been done! check out http://elvaliente.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/towards-a-better-singles-map/ – it’s a little less sexy than the other two, but it narrows the age range and only counts people with bachelors degrees. pretty interesting, i think.
Some of us ‘edumacated’ gals would date the phone company dudes and truck drivers if they were sweet, sensitive and still did things we do, like read books or vote or whatever. But some of those guys wouldn’t like US much, either!
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