I'm DrOrion taraban and this is cycax Better Living Through psychology and the topic of today's short talk is the way it all ends so this is a long one but it's an important one it's also one for the ladies so guys forward this on to your sisters and daughters they need to hear this all right let's start by taking a high level look at the state of the sexual Marketplace in the present day shall we fewer people are getting married entering into relationships or even hooking up than ever before all three of these things are at historically unprecedented lows and there are many many reasons for this however one of the primary drivers of this phenomenon as discussed in the previous episode is female hypergamy coupled with the reality that in the west young women are doing very well childless women under 30 are outperforming men in that demographic in almost every quantifiable metric and most notably in education and earning yay women that said if women retain their tendency to mate and date up and if young men are underperforming relative to young women then there will simply be a smaller and smaller pool from which most women would be willing to select a partner and since women are The Gatekeepers of sex and Men Are The Gatekeepers of commitment and since sex precedes commitment in the west we see the trickle-down effect mentioned before less sex leads to fewer relationships leads to fewer marriages now this would actually be a much easier problem to solve were it not for one little thing namely women despite all their modern ideas about gender sex and power are still waiting for the offer as discussed previously across all cultures and throughout history the man has been expected to proposition the woman this proposition can range from you up to can I buy you a drink sometime to will you marry me but it is always the man who makes the offer to the woman and this is peculiar because there doesn't seem to be like a necessary reason for this like if we can collectively question the necessity of pretty much every other traditional gender role I'm not sure why this one has survived to the present day and just for the record I would love to be taken out to dinner like if you want to make all the plans and pay for everything or if you want to invite me over for a home-cooked meal I would be thrilled to show up and look pretty provided of course you are sufficiently attractive you meet all of my criteria and you don't assume I'm just going to sleep with you because that would be creepy and my eyes are up here in any case and for whatever reason women don't seem interested in occupying this traditionally male role in the courtship process at all ages and at all levels of commitment they are still waiting for the offer now on the surface this doesn't seem to cause too many problems for women in their 20s the offers might be coming in hard and fast and it may reasonably seem like it's only a matter of time before an even better offer comes in and they'll accept when they're ready however this attitude while understandable leads to a number of Fairly predictable Downstream consequences this is because the game changes at 30. previously discussed 30 is the age at which the average male sexual Marketplace value exceeds the average woman's sexual Marketplace value for the very first time and since men are presumably expected to make the same ultimate offer namely marriage or a lifetime of commitment protection and provision to a woman in her 20s as to a woman in her 30s or Beyond and since women's sexual Marketplace value decreases across the same timeline all other things being equal the same offer becomes increasingly expensive as the woman ages I'll say that again in a slightly different way since the offer is the same but a woman's sexual Marketplace value decreases as she ages the same offer becomes increasingly expensive as a function of time what this generally means is that if women don't adapt to changing conditions they may find themselves priced out of the market especially since they seem hell-bent against making the offer this is why Mick Jagger crooned that time was on his side yes it is now before I go any further if you're liking what you're hearing please consider sending this episode to someone who might benefit from its message because it's Word of Mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow you can also hit the super thanks button it's the three little dots in the lower right hand corner and tip me in proportion to the value you feel you've derived from this message all of this is made possible through your support and I couldn't do this without you so I'm really appreciative of what you can do thank you very much all right let's try to put this all together shall we given all the factors that we've discussed thus far female hypergamy young women's success relative to young men changing smv as a function of time and the fact that women aren't making offers to men there are actually only a few different ways this can possibly turn out in fact if we play the chess out 20 moves we see that there are only five possible end games here for women can't give the exact odd ratios but some are much more plausible than others let's briefly walk through all five scenarios remember High performing attractive young women set an extremely high barrier to entry their success coupled with their hypergamy means that there are fewer potential mating and dating options for them their price tags the value required to overcome their entry barriers to a sexual relationship are very very high and since the majority of women are gunning for the same top 10 percent of men the intersexual competition is astounding now on the other hand while women are doing very well the men to whom they are hypergamously attracted are by definition doing even better these 10 percent of men have incredible optionality and they may understandably be reticent to forego the buffet for the same meal for the rest of their lives this creates the ironic Paradox that the men who have what women want are the least likely to give it to them let me say that again the men who have what women want are the least likely to give it to them from their perspective the women's demands are too expensive and they only become more expensive as a function of time and this phenomenon will intensify as the trends we've discussed continue what this means is that given the assumptions I've already mentioned there are only five end games for women as you'll see they logically cover all possible outcomes here they are a women keep their price tags High beat out the intersexual competition and secure the high value man B women lower their price tags in order to beat out the intersexual competition and secure the high value man C women keep their price tags High fail to beat out the intersexual competition and settle for a lower value man D women lower their price tags still fail to beat out the intersexual competition and settle for a low value man and E women neither secure nor settle and end up unpartnered there are literally no other ways for the game to end so which outcome is most likely feel free to pause the episode and take a guess now since we're talking about behavioral economics and the exchange of value the easiest way to approach an answer to this question is to consider what you a woman would do if you were shopping to that end would you ever ever buy the exact same product from one vendor if you could get it more cheaply and easily somewhere else of course not and that's why though this is going to be hard for some women to appreciate the most unlikely outcome by far is scenario a keeping your price tag high with men who are Awash in optionality ain't gonna lead to a sale that's it do you sometimes pay much more for a product from one vendor even though you could get a similar product more cheaply and easily elsewhere you do almost every woman I know owns a designer bag which is a sack to hold things you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on a sack but you do need to spend thousands of dollars on a Versace sack now Versace can charge thousands of dollars for a sack because they have demonstrated proof that women will pay thousands of dollars they can beat out all the other sacks they are the one percent of sacks and a woman needs to be a one percent woman to have a Versace price tag By definition most women are not one percent women they will lose to the intersexual competition for the top 10 percent of men if they keep their price tags High this is not because these men can't afford the price tag but because like you they are not going to spend more than they need to for the exact same product so scenario a is the least likely it only happens about one percent of the time next appreciate the fact that even if every one of these top 10 percent of men wanted to get married and settle down and they definitely don't that would mean by definition a maximum of only 10 percent of women could possibly end up with one of these high value men and since one percent of women end up in scenario a and since roughly one-third of the remaining men in this category by a conservative estimation will be uninterested in settling down at any one time this means that about six percent of women can possibly end up in scenario B making it the second least likely outcome and of course the cost of securing this outcome is women lowering their price tags women are you more likely to buy the Versace sack at full retail or when it's on sale even if you could afford the full retail wouldn't you be more motivated to act by the discount of course you would because that's rational and if Versace wants to reach a clientele that would otherwise be priced out of its regular product that is exactly what Versace needs to do excellent we've covered the first two options and there are still 93 percent of women left unaccounted for where are they going to go well since we know that 25 percent of women are unmarried at 40. a figure that's increased a whopping 25 in just the last 10 years and seven percent of women end up in the first two categories that means that about two-thirds of women will face endgames C and D and since my impression is that women reproductive window notwithstanding would genuinely and understandably prefer to remain unpartnered than resign themselves to a less desirable relationship with a lower value man I don't think there's an equal split here that said the desire for children and commitment can be very powerful in women especially as they age so there is a split to be made my hunch is that about 15 percent of women end up in scenario D they lower their price tags still fail to beat out the intersexual competition and settle for a lower value man making it the third least likely outcome and these women typically end up here out of pressure necessity women would you ever pay twenty dollars for a mediocre sandwich probably if you were at the airport and you didn't plan properly in this scenario the prospect of going 12 hours without food is more distasteful than being gouged for a disappointing meal you will be willing to pay more for less if the prospect of going entirely without is more painful seen from the opposite perspective this is why producers who create on a regular Cadence everyone from car manufacturers to fashion designers to local bakeries radically discount their products right before the newer fresher products are released this is designed to capture customers who for whatever reason are unwilling or unable to wait just a little bit longer for a better option hence pressured necessity if you need the sale and your product is expiring this is how you motivate action now next up is scenario e these are women who are unable to secure and unwilling to settle and they constitute a rapidly growing proportion of the population as of right now about one in Four Women will face this end game and I think it will soon become one in three making it the second most likely outcome it's too harsh to say that these women end up alone after all there are people everywhere with whom you can have satisfying relationships but they end up unpartnered and childless in 2020 nearly 60 percent of women under 30 in the U.
S were childless and frankly this doesn't seem to bother most women in this demographic many of them are thriving making good money traveling the world prioritizing their friends and their interests and receiving lots of offers however as I can apparently never say enough the game changes at 30. just like a lot changes between the ages of 19 and 29 A lot changes between the ages of 29 and 39.
