Saturday, December 13, 2008

Why its great to be a single man in Bangkok (and New York City)

In both of those cities there are many many more women - and therefore more single women - than men. The supply and demand of this means that men are able to be either more selective or much more poorly groomed and do quite well for themselves. It means that we can be slack and indulgent in a land of plenty while the other team gets vicious on a barren gaming field.

In both cities the reason might have to do with migration patterns. American women who are better educated these day then their male counterparts, flock to cities for jobs and husbands. They want guys of comparable education and earning potential, say Richard Florida, author of the Creative Class. According to Florida's singles map there are 210 thousand more single girls than guys in the New York-Northern Jersey area.



When their are fewer options those options start looking a lot better.

In Bangkok this situation is even more wonderful (from a guy's perspective). There are 547,000 more women than men in the marriage year between 20 and 44 - that's a huge number when the group we are talking about has less than 3 million.



This enormous gap (500,000!) is due to a massive in-migration of women into the city and a flight out of BKK by the men according to a report from the Economic Institute at Kobe University. Bangkok is a service economy of finance, hotels, and restaurants - all areas where women are thought to better employees in Thai eyes.

Bangkok's men (who like American men are less educated than their female peers) often leave the city to work in heavy industry and manufacturing.

This leaves the city incredibly gender lopsided - walking around Bangkok ourists often wonder - where did all the men go? The images of the protests were so female dominated that it felt like you were looking at a women's liberation movement instead of an anti-goverment rally.

But that's just Bangkok.
Did anyone smell a bra burning?
And its for that reason that you hear the same complaint from women there that you do here in big NYC - all the good ones are taken and the rest aren't too good.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reading this makes me think of the recession. It's only going to sink in once it starts to affect me personally :)

F!@# Man, How many times I gotta tell you, I blog, not write, B!@#! said...

Interesting Schectman.

Whether it's good being a single man in NYC is great depends on a variety of reasons. This argument raises several questions.

First of all, we must examine the quality of the supply. We must factor into account the number of weighty woman. In the post there is no evidence of how much they are in the supply. Thrus this may make demand lower.

Secondly, I agree that better educated woman do migrate to the city for jobs and will want a partner in comparable education and earning potential.
However, there is no mention of how the men are fairing against these high-powered woman. The argument of fewer options that enhance men's appeal is not convincing enough to defend the dummies out there.

Thirdly, Gay. Must account for those in supply that are.

Cheers!
~Wu

Joel Schectman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Very intriging Joel!
Did you forget about lesbian?
Well Done_)