Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site decwrl.DEC.COM Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!larrabee From: larrabee@decwrl.DEC.COM (Tracy Larrabee) Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women Subject: Re: Professional Women Remaining Perpetually Single Message-ID: <1533@decwrl.DEC.COM> Date: Thu, 6-Mar-86 04:11:56 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.1533 Posted: Thu Mar 6 04:11:56 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 8-Mar-86 02:16:34 EST Reply-To: larrabee@decwrl.UUCP (Tracy Larrabee) Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 59 Xref: watmath net.singles:10731 net.women:9576 Tony Wuersch asked me to post this for him since he didn't save a copy. His is one of only two private responses I got, and the other person did not suggest I make his opinions public. ----- From: amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw (Tony Wuersch) To: cae780!amdcad!decwrl!larrabee Subject: Re: Professional women remaining perpetually single Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca. I thought I'd reply to you so you might summarize in the future. I used to be a grad student in sociology, so I know what a parametric model is. It's just a model where the result (marriage) depends on something else (one or more factors). That's all it means. I think you're absolutely right in your mail to point out that it's hard to tell what a study like this means for 25 year old women looking ten years hence. The problem with a study like this is that the trend it points out (leading to low chances of marriage as women get over 35 or so) is just that, a trend. Pointing out a trend is pointing out something interesting today. Predicting from a trend is a much more risky business. We really couldn't know if the trend would last without knowing some of the causal factors behind the trend. If we could say that the same causal factors operated in similar proportions through the period from which predictions are being taken (say 10 or 15 years back), and that the same causal factors will operate in similar proportions in the future, then we could say that the trend has some likelihood of coming true. When the issue is women and marriage, and we know that depends very much on the status of women in the labor market, and that status has been changing rapidly, then I don't think one could claim that the causal factors are remaining the same over time. I would also think that once the disproportion between men and women in the relative numbers each is willing to marry (for instance, at 35 maybe, 60 women desiring only 45 available men for marriage, on the average in some urban areas) becomes obvious and a first generation of career women learns about this, the next female generation, if it wants to marry, will act very differently, either changing its expectations about men or deciding to marry earlier, or both. That is, there is no way such a trend will last without women adjusting to it first. If somebody could predict which path women would choose to avoid the conclusion of trends like these (as opposed to just drawing a line as if the trend will continue), then I'd give that research a lot more attention. Tony Wuersch amd!ubvax!tonyw