Another wedding season, another study showing that marriage is a raw deal for heterosexual women.
Last month, University College London and the London School of Economics released a joint study that found men who married were far less likely to suffer from metabolic syndrome – a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity – than their unmarried counterparts. For married women, the same health benefits simply did not exist.
It’s just the latest in a towering wall of research illustrating that the much-touted benefits of marriage are, in fact, a gendered proposition. The phenomenon, known in sociological circles as the Marriage Benefits Imbalance, has shown consistently that while married men enjoy increases in health, wealth and happiness over their singleton brothers, married women tend to be less financially stable, more depressed, less physically fit and more vulnerable to violence and abuse than their single and unmarried female counterparts.
.. My best educated guess would involve yet another nifty sociological term: the Expectations Gap. This is the idea that the sort of women who tend to marry are often the sort of women who tend to have – shall we say – untenable expectations of the benefits their union is going to provide.
World Crises a Really Big S.H.O.E.
- Sovereign Crisis
- Hegemonic Crisis
- Oder-Neisse Treaty Crisis
- Expectations Crisis
Germany, for example, has been unable to deliver prosperity and security to its region. It quasi-mercantilist, exporting 45% of all the goods and services it produced in 2014. Its strategy not only dampens its own domestic demand, aggravating social stresses but also forces others to experience trade deficits.
.. There are other areas where a local power, or regional hegemon, is being challenged. Saudi Arabia is being challenged by Iran. Its oil strategy is hurting all OPEC members, and many do not have the resources, Saudi Arabia. The disputes in the South China Sea seem to reflect recognition of China’s rising power. Chinese officials were content to let sleeping dogs lie, feeling confident they will have more power in the years to come, which would facilitate more favorable outcomes for it. Other countries realize the same thing and are more anxious to push their claims before then.
.. The slowing of population growth and productivity translates directly into slower growth. It also contributes to the disparity of wealth and income. These considerations mean that returns on investments will likely be lower than what some pension funds or investors anticipate. It is difficult to see how the generation that is reaching maturity now in the US will on average, live as good as their parents.
.. Education used to be a vehicle for class mobility. It is not clear that is still the case.