European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 8, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 the stars and stripes tuesday april 8, 1986the changing women s marriage Market by William r. Greer new York times a Merican women who defer marriage to go to College an pursue a career Are finding that by the time they decide to marry the marriage Market has in effect evaporated according to a study by two Yale sociologists and a Harvard economist. College educated White american women who have not married by the time they Are 25 years old have Only a 50 percent Chance of marrying according to the unpublished study which analyses census data from 70,000 households. Just 20 percent of the women who reach the age of 30 without marrying can be expected to marry 5 percent of those who reach the age of 35 without marrying will marry and for those beyond 40, perhaps 1 percent will marry the study showed. I think people up until this Point have suspected that Well educated women were deferring marriage said one of the sociologists who conducted the study Neil g. Bennett an associate professor of sociology at Yale University. However it appears from this analysis that much of this marriage deferral is translating into marriage  Many women Are investing a lot of time in higher education and pursuing careers and in the process they re deferring marriage,".he added. We Are finding out that it reaches a Point eventually where the marriage Market in effect Falls out from under  Bennett said the reasons that fewer women Are marrying Are Complex. Essentially the study showed that Many women after deferring marriage find that by the time they want to marry there Are fewer available men to choose from. Those available Are either not the kind of men the women want to marry or the men prefer women who Are younger not As highly educated or not As successful. Sociologists and psychologists who were asked about the results of the Survey said that although it was impossible to verify its statistical conclusions until it was published the results seemed to Bear out some current theories about marriage patterns. The cultural pattern is still for men to choose women who Are not their equals even though women Are increasingly becoming their equals in their careers and their education said Laurel Richardson a sociology professor at Ohio state University who has written a Book on single women and their options the new other woman the free press $17.95. Richardson said that her research had found a dearth of available men for older women in the United states. For example for every 223 unmarried women in their 40s, there Are Only 100 unmarried men in the 40s, she said and for every 10 women 40 to 49 years old with a College education there Are orly 3 single men who Are older and better educated. The new Yale Harvard study showed that in part because of this imbalance the number of College educated women who marry has dropped significantly Bennett said. Whereas Only 9 percent of College educated women born in the mid-1930s never got married it appears that 22 percent of College educated women born there Are fewer reasons today for women to marry a Harvard economist says a in the mid-1950s can be expected to never marry he said. These results were especially striking Bennett said because in most other subgroups of the population 90 percent of the women married at some Point. The 37-Page study was conducted Over the past year by Bennett Patricia h. Craig another Yale sociologist and David e. Bloom an economics professor at Harvard. It examined the data gathered from the . Census Bureau s june 1982 current population Survey and Drew on several other surveys that reflect changes in current marriage patterns. The researchers used a mathematical device called a Parametric Model that based on past and present marriage patterns is supposed to project what proportion of the women covered by the Survey would marry and at what age. The Model also estimated what percentage of women would never marry. The study did not establish Why women surveyed did not marry. It did not show for example if the women chose not to or if they could not find suitable husbands. It could very Well be that Many women who reach age 30 having not married Are quite Content never to marry Bennett said. For some group of women just As with some group of men who never marry there will be some Lack of emotional fulfilment but we just Don t know by virtue of our data just How much heartache there is out there. Also it May Well be that men Are continuing to make unrealistic demands of Well educated career oriented women demands to which men themselves would never accede he added. And that May be Why Many of these women Are not  the report offers a number of explanations for its results. Bloom the Harvard economist attributed what he called the huge decrease in the number of women who marry primarily to their increased participation in the labor Market. About 55 percent of the women Over the age of 16 Are in the labor Force in 1986, compared with 34 percent in 1950 and 36 percent in 1955. The fundamental Point is both marriage and work Are very time intensive Bloom said. Essentially it s hard to do both. It turns out that a lot of those women who thought they were delaying marriage subsequently find out that their marriage ability declines he added. They find it difficult to find a Marriageable partner and they themselves become less interested in marriage because of the lifestyle they  there Are fewer reasons for a woman to marry Bloom said. Women Are More financially Independent. Contraception and the legality and growing acceptance of abortion have also freed women from the child bearing function to an extent that is unprecedented in history he added. Women Don t have to get married to have children and they Don t have to avoid marriage in order to avoid having  historically Bennett said women expected to marry someone with higher accomplishments and higher educational attainments than themselves and conversely men in the past expected to marry women who weren t quite their equals and were willing to stay Home and take care of the household and take care of the  these expectations Are changing and must change further he added. In effect there has to be a meeting of the minds otherwise Many More people will go  the study did not examine men and their marriage patterns because Bennett said the census Bureau s data supplied by men were untrustworthy. It appears that when men Are asked about their marital status on surveys if they Are actually divorced they May say they have never been married he said. This is presumably because Many men do not pay their child support and they re afraid that the government will pursue them if this was found  the study also showed that contrary to what is commonly thought women Are not getting married much later than they used to. Bennett said the average marrying age of College educated White women born in the mid-1930s was 23. The average age of women from the same group born in the mid-1950s was 24. A handful of single women who were asked about the results of the Survey said they found them  a few said there was a genuine Scarcity of men. But others said they believed the Survey did not reflect a Lack of Opportunity for women As much As their increasing selectivity. I Don t want to sound like a snob but if you re College educated and pursuing a career and trying to achieve something right away half the men in the world Are no longer interesting to you said Liza Gaynor a 26-year-old Yale graduate who is starting her own company in Manhattan. You want a Man who is As educated As ambitious and As interested in achieving something As you  the main Point is that women Are refusing to lower their standards said Elizabeth Boucher a 26-year-old Wall Street stockbroker. There Are plenty of Guys out there who want to get married but it s a question of whether it s the kind. Of Guy you want to  and As Boucher pointed out women also said they Felt Little pressure to get married either for economic or emotional reasons. I think women Are much less frightened of going out and being alone. They get so much satisfaction from other parts of their lives that they Don t rely so heavily anymore on the Man in their