I haven't been following the debate over homosexual marriage in San Francisco, but I have been reading up on sex ratios and their effect on marriage markets. I've been thinking about possibly pursuing the following idea: that drug laws are causing the high rates of illegitimacy and female head of households in African-American communities by reducing the supply of marriageable black males to the market for marriage. This puts women, in the market, at a disadvantage. They are now competing for fewer marriageable men, which means they are being forced to pay higher prices for these men. When you consider that the men removed from the population via violence and incarceration may very well be the population's best - not worst - men, it means women are paying higher prices, either in terms of settling for less quality men, or by paying higher prices for those same men. (My argument is that these removed men could be the community's best, because they are the community's risk-takers and most enterprising).
What might high prices for women mean? Maybe it means things like men no longer having to commit, at the margin, since more women are willing to compromise, at the margin. Couple this with government welfare policies which aid lower income, pregnant females with housing and aid, then you maybe this is driving some, if not most, of the persistent problems concerning long-term wage inequality, high crime rates, and family composition (ie, female head of household) within lower income, African-American communities. The theory is the easy part; it's testing this that's going to be hard.
But it made me wonder - practically speaking, what might the effect of legislated homosexual marriage have? You'd likely see an increase in the number of homosexual matches, since the current legislation forbidding it probably does raise the costs of homosexual matching somewhat. You might see less promiscuity among homosexuals, too, since they enter into a binding legal contract with one another in which they are jointly produce and share family income. That makes divorce sticky, and so insofar as there are social advantages to this, it might be an improvement to the current situation.
But I was also wondering if you might see it affecting the heterosexual marriage market, as well. Are men substitutes for women? I posed the following question to my class: assume an island in which 100 men lived and 100 women lived, and this island went to war. To build its army, the island relied exclusively on a draft which drew out of the population exactly 50 men. These men are all killed and are not replaced (no immigration allowed). What would happen? We talked about it and some interesting suggestions were made. The price of men rises due to the shift in supply, and the number of marriages decreases. But what does "price" mean in this context. One student said maybe women are having to settle for lower quality males - he called this the "Bubba effect." There's more "Bubba's," relative to the entire male population. Another student threw out polygamy, which was interesting. In periods where polygamy prospered, were the sex ratios imbalanced? When they decline, do you see a balancing out of the sex ratios? It was an interesting question. And then one student humorously said, "Maybe you'd see substitution effects." Meaning, women would start matching with one another due to the shift in the supply of men. We all snickered, but it got me thinking. Freud actually reports this phenemon happening. In prisons, males who were historically heterosexual will voluntarily (and involuntarily) become practicing homosexuals. This behavior will cease once they re-enter the civilian population. There are also anecdotal tales of this happening on submarines. This is mainly an empirical question, though. My guess is that most men and women do not consider men and women substitutes. But still, I'd be interested in testing that.
Posted by scott at March 2, 2004 09:21 AM | TrackBackEvolutionarily, bisexuality makes the most sense probably. We discussed this in my sensory and perception class (I have no idea how we got on that topic). Anyway, when you think about it, those entities practicing bisexuality have 100% of any population to pick from. They could be taken care of by either sex while still reproducing with the opposite sex. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
Aw, c'mon -- you knew it was coming.
Posted by: Russ at March 2, 2004 10:29 AMFor a different, compelling, and disturbing, though very introductory analysis of sexual relationships in western urban society (in this case London), I cannot recommend highly enough Dalrymple's _Life at the Bottom_. I'm sure I recommended it before It's not an academic book, but I think it should provide lots of ideas for hypotheses to prove/disprove, or, more properly, to encourage/discourage. I'm not sure "proof" is a good term in social science.
Posted by: Paul Baxter at March 2, 2004 10:49 AMRuss, I've thought about this before, too. I'm not very good with statistics, so I usually end up confusing myself. But here's what I imagine. Please contribute to this, whoever.
Imagine you're at a party in which the entire population is heterosexual and there are 50 men and 50 women (population equals 100 total). There's a one in 50 probablity that you'll match with your first pick. But if you're homosexual, at a party of 100 men, then there's a 1 in 100 chance of matching with your first pick. Just simply speaking, it seems like your odds of matching are better, not worse, as a heterosexual. Even though there will ultimately be 50 matches total in both, you have a better shot of getting the person you want as a heterosexual male than as a homosexual male, because in the latter, you're facing more competition.
I was trying to think about this one day when I'd heard, again, that homosexual males are, by and large, more promiscuous. I was wondering - well, could that have anything to do with that party scenario. But I can't really figure out if that's true or not. I also heard that homosexual males smoke more cigerretes, but I can't figure out why that might be the case either. Again, just thinking of this all using rationality, and not appealing to tastes.
Paul, I'm on it. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm sure it's in the library, so I'll check it out.
Posted by: scott cunningham at March 2, 2004 11:41 AMThis is odds of matching with respect to one's preferrer partner, that is.
Posted by: scott cunningham at March 2, 2004 11:42 AMSo, the probabilities are based on your competition? Would that be a 1 in 99 chance in the case of the homosexual men because you can't match with yourself? Small point, but I'm bad at probabilities, too.
What happens if you take away the "first pick" part? In each scenario, wouldn't everyone have *some* match? I'm just thinking from a pragmatic approach -- one that would ensure the spread of genetic material or at least coupling of some kind. That's why bisexuality is a little different. It makes the most sense from a "maximizing your potential for resources" standpoint. From a "gender" standpoint, the bi-animals would have two to pick from, whereas the hetero-animals would have only one. Thus, whatever the gender distribution of the population, the bi-animals would always have the best chances to find a mate. Of course, if sexuality is dependent on the genders of available mates (the theory you pointed out in the island and jail scenarios), then there is no benefit to being either orientation at any one time.
Posted by: Russ at March 3, 2004 11:49 AMI saw that the magazine publication of The Economist most recently had an article that seemed to be in favor of this new Californian sensation of same sex marriages. Don't know if it's exactly what you are tackling, but could possibly be some referancing material.
Posted by: Sean Burns at March 3, 2004 12:12 PMI saw that the magazine publication of The Economist most recently had an article that seemed to be in favor of this new Californian sensation of same sex marriages. Don't know if it's exactly what you are tackling, but could possibly be some referancing material.
Posted by: Sean Burns at March 3, 2004 12:12 PMRuss, but then it seems (and I could totally be wrong here) like the probabilities are the same and you're still not better off being gay. If in either situation, you are indifferent to the person you're matched with, then there's a 100% chance of matching. There will form 50 matches either way. So there, it doesn't seem like you're better off being gay; it seems just that your chances are the same.
But, if you assume a distribution of appearances among the population, then it might actually be better to be a heterosexual, since your chance of getting your first pick is only 1 in 50. Whereas for being gay, it's 1 in 100.
That's all assuming the 100 population with equality among genders or an all male population. I think if you start changing that, it starts to be a different problem.
Posted by: scott cunningham at March 3, 2004 03:18 PMI agree with you completely, Scott. I didn't mean to say that the homosexual man would have any sort of advantage in the scenario you brought up. They are definitely even unless you take into account personal preferences, which would surely be at work in that situation. With personal preferences at work, the hetero man would have a better chance at matching with his target. Of course, you pointed all that out already so I'm merely repeating you for no real reason. :)
I've been enjoying your blog lately. Good stuff.
Posted by: Russ at March 3, 2004 04:03 PM