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Old 08-23-2006, 01:27 PM   #1
BlueStar
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Red face Forbes magazine tells men not to marry career women

Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.

Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women--even those with a "feminist" outlook--are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

Not a happy conclusion, especially given that many men, particularly successful men, are attracted to women with similar goals and aspirations. And why not? After all, your typical career girl is well-educated, ambitious, informed and engaged. All seemingly good things, right? Sure…at least until you get married. Then, to put it bluntly, the more successful she is the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you. Sound familiar?

Many factors contribute to a stable marriage, including the marital status of your spouse's parents (folks with divorced parents are significantly more likely to get divorced themselves), age at first marriage, race, religious beliefs and socio-economic status. And, of course, many working women are indeed happily and fruitfully married--it's just that they are less likely to be so than non-working women. And that, statistically speaking, is the rub.

To be clear, we're not talking about a high-school dropout minding a cash register. For our purposes, a "career girl" has a university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside the home and makes more than $30,000 a year.

If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill ( American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier ( Institute for Social Research).

Why? Well, despite the fact that the link between work, women and divorce rates is complex and controversial, much of the reasoning is based on a lot of economic theory and a bit of common sense. In classic economics, a marriage is, at least in part, an exercise in labor specialization. Traditionally men have tended to do "market" or paid work outside the home and women have tended to do "non-market" or household work, including raising children. All of the work must get done by somebody, and this pairing, regardless of who is in the home and who is outside the home, accomplishes that goal. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker argued that when the labor specialization in a marriage decreases--if, for example, both spouses have careers--the overall value of the marriage is lower for both partners because less of the total needed work is getting done, making life harder for both partners and divorce more likely. And, indeed, empirical studies have concluded just that.

In 2004, John H. Johnson examined data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and concluded that gender has a significant influence on the relationship between work hours and increases in the probability of divorce. Women's work hours consistently increase divorce, whereas increases in men's work hours often have no statistical effect. "I also find that the incidence in divorce is far higher in couples where both spouses are working than in couples where only one spouse is employed," Johnson says. A few other studies, which have focused on employment (as opposed to working hours) have concluded that working outside the home actually increases marital stability, at least when the marriage is a happy one. But even in these studies, wives' employment does correlate positively to divorce rates, when the marriage is of "low marital quality."

The other reason a career can hurt a marriage will be obvious to anyone who has seen their mate run off with a co-worker: When your spouse works outside the home, chances increase they'll meet someone they like more than you. "The work environment provides a host of potential partners," researcher Adrian J. Blow reported in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, "and individuals frequently find themselves spending a great deal of time with these individuals."

There's more: According to a wide-ranging review of the published literature, highly educated people are more likely to have had extra-marital sex (those with graduate degrees are 1.75 more likely to have cheated than those with high school diplomas.) Additionally, individuals who earn more than $30,000 a year are more likely to cheat.

And if the cheating leads to divorce, you're really in trouble. Divorce has been positively correlated with higher rates of alcoholism, clinical depression and suicide. Other studies have associated divorce with increased rates of cancer, stroke, and sexually-transmitted disease. Plus divorce is financially devastating. According to one recent study on "Marriage and Divorce's Impact on Wealth," published in The Journal of Sociology, divorced people see their overall net worth drop an average of 77%.

So why not just stay single? Because, academically speaking, a solid marriage has a host of benefits beyond just individual "happiness." There are broader social and health implications as well. According to a 2004 paper entitled "What Do Social Scientists Know About the Benefits of Marriage?" marriage is positively associated with "better outcomes for children under most circumstances," higher earnings for adult men, and "being married and being in a satisfying marriage are positively associated with health and negatively associated with mortality." In other words, a good marriage is associated with a higher income, a longer, healthier life and better-adjusted kids.

A word of caution, though: As with any social scientific study, it's important not to confuse correlation with causation. In other words, just because married folks are healthier than single people, it doesn't mean that marriage is causing the health gains. It could just be that healthier people are more likely to be married.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 01:33 PM   #2
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can you believe there is a show on television called workout? it;s all about life at a gym. anyway. the owner of the gym was flown in by this rich and seemingly closet lesbian. well, the rich woman hasnt had a job since she got married and they only have one kid. she spent all of her time getting massages and flying in trainers and going out to expensive restaurants and buying buttloads of clothes. that's nice and all. but how can people not get bored of that? i dont know what the husband looked like but the woman was very pretty and in great shape so i guess he thinks he's getting a good deal. errr. sorry. im not exctly sure where i was going with this.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 01:43 PM   #3
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lol my wife sent me this article yesterday... in 1 year she will be a doctor and hopefully within 6 years making close to 200k a year, and I was like.... are you trying to tell me something??? It pretty much says that if you marry a career woman who makes more money than you, you better not have kids and you better stay home and clean for your career wife, but at the same time you have to make equal or more than her for her to be truly happy.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 01:55 PM   #4
alisonmonster
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i like how they put that little blurb at end of the article.

sure these things are factors into whether a marriage is healthy or not, but it should also be noted that in our society, how we work, the culture of what work demands and how we spend our money are also massive influences on marriage happiness. We are taught to work our asses off and to buy things to fill those other holes in our lives. Good for the economy but at what price? I don't think you can just make simple assumtions and say 'more women in the workplace and everythings going to shit'. It's how you work, how you choose to balance and what priorities you make and the pluses and minuses of these things - for BOTH genders. Women are more often desperately trying to find a balance between work, kids, home, wife - where women find self esteem isn't as cut and dried anymore but its nowthe same with men. Its the culture we have in North America about work , money, the individual and where we find our self esteem. When we desperately try to 'have it all' and it doesn't always work out that way people get pissed and throw around blanket statements.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 02:09 PM   #5
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Good thing money buys happiness.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 02:20 PM   #6
wHATcOLOR
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well that's just common sense

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 02:26 PM   #7
yo soy el mejor
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: [

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 02:28 PM   #8
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stole my reply

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 02:30 PM   #9
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i think teachers are pretty hot though

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 02:58 PM   #10
wally
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I married one.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 03:19 PM   #11
Karl Connor
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i go to school with alot of women who are basically housewives that got bored and decided to go back to school. not many of them finish but virtually everytime on of them does they leave their husband on the first paycheck they get

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 03:21 PM   #12
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Old 08-23-2006, 03:39 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alexthestampede
this is awesome

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 03:35 PM   #14
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I suppose the answer is to discourage women from having careers right? Why would they even put out that article and then put a blurb at the end basically saying OH by the way everything you just read isn't necessarily true so don't take our little chauvanistic article too seriously.

 
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Old 08-23-2006, 03:37 PM   #15
Orenthal James
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i think the point is that the article assumes men are "career men." i say you could flip it around and say that if you are a "career woman," dont get involved with a "career man."

 
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