The unmarried and middle-aged, by education

I used data from the Census Bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey. The charts below show the percentage of never married 41-45 year old non-Hispanic whites by education level. There is one chart for each sex.

For men, as education increases, the likelihood of being never married decreases. This is no doubt because the less education a man has, the more of a loser he is, and the less likely it is that a woman would be interested in marrying him.

Women who are high school dropouts are more likely to be never married, probably because they are white trash and behave more like the black underclass in which it’s considered normal to have children without husbands.

Women with high school degrees or some college are the least likely to be never married. But as a woman’s education level increases beyond that, her chance of being never married increases.

The chart does not tell us the cause and effect. Maybe women with more education are less desirable mates, or maybe they are too picky and no man is good enough for them. Or maybe the cause and effect run in the opposite direction. Women who are unmarried pursue more education in order to console themselves in their loneliness.

2006, Non-Hispanic White Men, 41-45
Cells contain: -Row percent -N of cases		marst
		1 married past or present	2 never married	ROW TOTAL
educ99	1: dropout	75.1 536,716	24.9 177,989	100.0 714,705
	2: high school or GED	82.2 2,093,393	17.8 453,991	100.0 2,547,384
	3: some college	85.2 1,818,146	14.8 316,824	100.0 2,134,970
	4: Bachelor's degree	85.0 1,314,072	15.0 232,638	100.0 1,546,710
	5: graduate degree	86.0 719,139	14.0 117,159	100.0 836,298
	COL TOTAL	83.3 6,481,466	16.7 1,298,601	100.0 7,780,067

2006, Non-Hispanic White Women, 41-45
Cells contain: -Row percent -N of cases		marst
		1 married past or present	2 never married	ROW TOTAL
educ99	1: dropout	85.4 437,254	14.6 74,731	100.0 511,985
	2: high school or GED	91.0 2,033,698	9.0 201,699	100.0 2,235,397
	3: some college	91.2 2,356,832	8.8 226,466	100.0 2,583,298
	4: Bachelor's degree	88.0 1,478,811	12.0 201,228	100.0 1,680,039
	5: graduate degree	84.2 681,509	15.8 127,690	100.0 809,199
	COL TOTAL	89.4 6,988,104	10.6 831,814	100.0 7,819,918

Comments

[Peter]

Note that the differences are hardly staggering in their magnitude. Among people with graduate degrees, 86.0% of the men and 84.2% of the women are/were married.

[Varjags]

Omg it means I stay unmarried o.0 First career,then maybe women and if it's time than children :)
Losers white.........

[Jason]

I am somehwat surprised. All of the never married men I know have college degrees.

[Ned]

I don't know any never married men in their 40's who aren't gay. Where are these people?