Sexless in the City

Here is a tip for educated women hopelessly looking for love in the city; you are not the only educated woman having a hard time finding a man.

It isn’t just that educated men are hard to find, although it is true that they are in relatively short supply. Ever since 1985 there have been more women than men in Canadian universities; currently for every 100 women enrolled in a Canadian University, there are only 73 men.

The other part of this unromantic story has to do with living in the city.

Educated workers are drawn to cities because that is where they earn the highest return on their years of education. Less educated workers don’t receive this benefit to urban living and are more likely to locate in rural areas. For whatever reason, though, less educated women are also drawn to the cities perhaps because unskilled female labor pays more in the cities than in the country or, as some might argue, they come to the cities in the hopes of finding a higher paid partner.*

So there are more women in the cities and educated women are having a harder time finding a partner. Whenever demand exceeds supply something has to give.

Maybe urban-dwelling women will remain single, and falling marriage rates indicate that this is the case now. Maybe women will move to the country in search of love. Or, my personal favorite, maybe men will increase their education levels in hopes of finding themselves a well-paid woman.

A girl can dream.

Either way I think there is an opportunity here for a spin-off: Sex in the Country. Four high-school educated guys searching for elusive love in the country. It could be fun.

*Edlund, L. (2005). Sex and the City. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 107(1), 25-44.