Yale-Harvard marriage study

[Terry Grevstad]

jea...@rand-unix.UUCP (Jean Thomas) says:
>Actually, I think it's more than a question of flexibility. Let me quote
>(unauthorized) an article (somewhat shortened) recently run by AP under
>the headline "Report tells women to marry younger men":
>
> "It's imperative to tell women that it's not their fault--that they have
> gotten better (with age) but they've got a bad market situation," said
> sociologist Ann Swidler of Stanford University, one of six social
> scientists who examined the "marriage crunch" issue.

I think this statement is particularly true in the Americas. Several
years ago I read an article with some surprising results. A survey
was taken of men in the U.S. and in Europe. They were asked to name
the woman they considered to be the most attractive. The 10 most
mentioned names were then compiled for the U.S. and for Europe. What
they found was in the European survey all ten women were over 40. In
the U.S. survey all ten women were under 35, with only two falling in
the 30-35 bracket.

It was speculated that the definitions of ``attractive'' were
different for European men than for American men. European men were
more concerned with such things as dignity, grace, wisdom, as well as
physical beauty. The American men were only looking at bodies and
facies. (Advertising media stuff, you know.)

P.S. I think the same survey was done recently with some big changes
on the American side. As I recall, none of the women were under 25,
and there were several over 40, including Linda Evans and Joan
Collins.

------ For what it's worth ------

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without a Terry Grevstad
ECNALG Network Research Corporation
ihnp4!nrcvax!terry
{sdcsvax,hplabs}!sdcrdcf!psivax!nrcvax!terry

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[Joe Public]

In article <14...@onfcanim.UUCP> da...@onfcanim.UUCP writes:
>
>So, you see, the study took some statistics, simplified, extrapolated,
>and came up with a result that isn't terribly significant when you
>understand the assumptions behind it. And then the press reported its
>conclusions, without the information that would have let you judge how
>valid the conclusions were, or even the fact that they were predictions
>not fact.
>

I thought the study included all the qualifications you mentioned, but the
press decided to ignore them (too complicated for our readers :-)) since it
made a better story that way.

>
>More and more I'm coming to feel that I can't trust *anything* I read
>in the popular press.
>
> Dave Martindale

I wish more people would learn to take what they read in the dailies with a
grain of salt. For one thing, we'd have a lot less AIDS hysteria (and some
preachers would have a lot less to preach about :-)).

--calvin richter--