Manning up and womanning down!
An Economics prof once told us, "Statistics don't lie. For that you need statisticians." Anybody else notice anything wrong with this article? They provide percentages of men, percentages of women, percentages of people, "a large study", census data, reference time frames when data was collected - all great stuff. They fail to mention sample size! Like when entertainment news people say how much money a movie made, but won't offer the better metric, ticket numbers, because, the numbers would be smaller, ergo, less impressive. Ever fill out a census form that asks open ended questions? Very rare! They're used to compile correlational data. There's a whole lot of connecting the dots and arriving at subjective conclusions without substantial backing.
Who failed to mention the sample size? The original article explicitly states that the number of observations in each category and the baseline sample has more than 200,000 entries.
@Spongebob the NYTimes author. I reread the article, followed the links, got another set of eyes on the problem. Not sure where you're coming up with 200k people. Not saying that the author didn't read the reports, but they were surveys, which are fantastic for creating piecharts and tables, but less so when it comes to demonstrating causality or building a narrative. You may have filled out the survey when you joined this site, but based on your results, there would no indication of WHY you're an agnostic/atheist. That's what your bio's for - to explain (or not) that position.
It's an entertaining article. With all the numbers, the author was throwing out there, I was just surprised to see a key feature missing from each of the studies cited. And I might have been a little more accepting if she hadn't repeatedly referred to surveys. Didn't mean to upset you.
Articles like this make me despair for my dating prospects. Haha. In my experience, it hasn't even been the issue that's been the problem; it's my advanced degrees. Who knew two spells in graduate school would be so intimidating?
Perhaps one day(if you are in a relationship),your boyfriend/husband will fear your leaving for someone more intelligent than he is? I dunno,a hard question to answer.
Yes, the degrees will help in job positions,but leave you a dearth of dating/relationship possibilities.