Download men in contemp society

Summary of:
Kruger, D. J. (2009). When men are scarce, good men are even harder to find: Life
history, the sex ratio,
and the proportion of men married. The Journal Of Social, Evolutionary, And
Cultural Psychology,
3(2), 93-104.
Summary by Lisa Jamar, Scott Wolfson, Melanie de la Cruz, Calvin Torng
For Dr. Mills Psyc 310 class, Spring, 2014
Daniel J. Kruger’s study of the proportion of married men in adulthood is
assessed based on its relationship to the operational sex ratio. Kruger hypothesized about
two different variables. First, at a younger age, women would marry more often than men,
but more men would be married in adulthood. This studied the relationship between age
related trends and reproductive value. Second, Kruger predicted that the higher rate of
marriage in male adulthood was due to men capitalizing on the low sex ratio population
of prospective husbands. Modern societal values suggest this is due to the shift from
mating efforts to the desire for parental investment in men.
Overall, Kruger’s study assesses the relationship between the likelihood of men
marrying, depending on age, and the variation in the sex ratio. In looking at this
relationship, it’s important to look at the evolution of the sex ratio. On average it makes
sense for each sex to have equal reproductive success due to the fact that each person has
one mother and one father. However, if more of one sex is produced, then the opposite
sex will have higher reproductive value. This is the way in which a stable equilibrium is
reached, as selection favors the production of the rarer sex. The rarer sex is more valuable
in the marriage market, but in a society in which there is high sex ratio, men outnumber
women, their socioeconomic status is the biggest factor in their suitability. High sex
ratios have been thought to related to the higher marriage rate in men because of the sex
differences in reproductive strategies (Kruger, 94.) Hypergyny, women favor men of
higher status, is further explained through the higher parental investment women make in
reproduction. The woman is more selective in the process of choosing a mate because she
wants more valuable resources and a mate that will stay involved. This provides the basis
for which we see competition for resources and “signals of willingness to commit” in
men (Kruger, 94.)
Guttentag and Secord (1983) looked at how sex ratios can have an impact on
mens attitude. Guttentag and Secord found that in the 1930s-1950s men were more
invested in long-term relationships compared to in the 1960s-1970s when men held the
attitude of love them and then leave them. They found that these attitudes resulted by
how the sex ratio aligned, after the baby boom the men had a poorer attitude towards
long-term relationships. When women had a low sex ratio, men would treat women very
poorly and men would also be absent in the lives of their children. When women had a
high sex ratio and were wanting their independence, men were more likely to be
monogamous.
In modern populations it is seen that in large cities the sex ratio is very low for
women. This in turn causes men to be polygamous and unwilling to commit to a
relationship. Men looked for short-term relationships and are emotionally unavailable to
women. Women are also more likely to settle for less then they deserve when the sex
ratio is low.
The life history theory (LHT) explains that organisms constantly make trade-offs
in allocation of resources depending on the social and ecological conditions. Studies have
shown that in areas of low sex ratio, men have less of an incentive to stay in committed
relationships since there are more opportunities to mate. Males have less opportunities for
short term relationships with women as they age, therefore, it is predicted that males will
use low sex ratio to their advantage based on age (i.e. more inclined to have short term
relationship when men are young as opposed to when they get older) There is a trend that
shows that females tend to marry earlier than men due to the fact that the reproductive
value of females peaks at age 20. Women tend to look for males with characteristics that
would signify “genetic fitness”. Men tend to marry later after they have acquired
sufficient social status.
A graph was created plotting the proportion of men and women where were
unmarried by age across the largest cities in the Unites States. The Operational Sex Ratio
(OSR) and proportion of men and women who were married was calculated. The
correlation was graphed.
In the results for the study, women were more likely than men to be married from
the ages of 18 to 34, and men were more likely than women to be married at age 45 and
above. “A maximum of 61.5% of women were married in the 35 to 44 year age group, a
maximum of 73.1% of men were married in the 60 to 64 year age group” (Kruger, 99).
The operational sex ratio (OSR) of the study relating to men who were married was
directly related in early adulthood, but then became inversely related to of the men who
were married in later adulthood. The results supported the original hypothesized
statement between the sex relationship and marital results across adulthood. This shows
to be consistent with modern society and also that we live in a population with serial
polygyny. Young men with in low sex ratio populations are thus less likely to get married,
but this reverses as men become older and are more likely to become married even with a
low sex ratio. The results suggest that there is a dramatic shift in modern times to with a
greater effort for mating for short-term relationships. “Men in high sex ratio populations
appear to commit to marriage earlier in life, and would then signal relationship
commitment and paternal investment in an attempt to retain their partners” (Kruger, 100).
All in all, this study displays how the sex ratio affects marital patterns. One limitation
study was the disproportionate rate of male mortality compared to the female mortality
rate. Since men typically died sooner than women, their numbers of marriage in later
adulthood would be skewed. “The findings clarify how age moderates the relationship
between male scarcity and the male likelihood of marriage” (Kruger, 101).
“In Figure 2, bars above the plane
indicate a direct relationship between the OSR and the proportion of men who
are married- indicating that men are more likely to be married when they are
plentiful than when they are scarce. Bars below the plane indicate an inverse
relationship between the OSR and the proportion of men who are marriedindicating that men are more likely to be married when they are scarce than when
they are plentiful. These relationships were significant at the α = .001 level,
except for the non-significant correlation in the 18-19 year age group, when
fewer than 3% of men were married” (Kruger, 99).