from The Atlantic:
**The Clooney Effect
Helen Fisher’s latest study on American singles flips stereotypical relationship dynamics and introduces the age of the trophy husband. **
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/the-clooney-effect/386018/
What are you observing?
If the above is the case, there aren’t going to be very many marriages.
SomeMuchYoungerGal married down years ago.
Users of match.com may not necessarily reflect overall preferences.
It must vary depending where in the socioeconomic spectrum the guy is. If he is rich and super-intelligent, he will have the sense not to look for the few who are his superiors. If he is a dumb loser, one of the smart things he might think of is to find a well-off woman who can also explain how things work.
I’m not sure that what people report necessarily matches what they’ll really do. I haven’t noticed that suddenly men are mostly pairing up with women who earn more than they do. Of course it sometimes happens or works out that way, but I don’t see some trend of men purposely searching for women who earn more than they do.
More typically, from what I’ve seen, the female dating partners earn less, either because they are younger and not yet as established in career or they’ve pursued careers that are more typically “female” which often have lower salaries.
All men marry up.
^lol, this guy gets it. 
In the town I raised my kids in, very mixed low to middle class, it was very common with couples I knew for the woman to be more formally educated than the guy. Most women in the group I hung with had college degrees, and many of their husbands did not. I’m guessing it was because it was easier for lower middle class guys to find paying professions (landscaping, carpentry, auto mechanics, plumbers, middle management type positions), whereas to get ahead, it was more necessary for the women to have an education (they tended to be teachers, nurses, etc.) These are people in their 50s/60s now, so that trend might not reflect contemporary practice.
I don’t know - are there more unhappy, unmarried 30+ year old women or unhappy, unmarried 30+ year old men?
I think it’s a very badly written article!
Take this quote: ". many men aren’t just looking for their equals but perhaps their superiors. The vast majority—87 percent—said they would date a woman who makes more money, is more intellectual, and is better educated than they are.
Women, for their part, seem to be looking for their equals: 86 percent want a partner who is as intelligent as they are. Additionally, 55 percent aren’t willing to support their partner financially, and 61 percent claim not being as intelligent as them is an automatic deal-killer, according to the Match.com findings"
The first paragraph groups together 3 different pieces of information, with one blanket statistic. The second breaks down the different factors. Would a woman date a man who " makes more money, is more intellectual, and is better educated than they are"??? We don’t know What are the individual statistics on men who “want a partner who is as intelligent as they are”?? Who “aren’t willing to support their partner financially”??? Who “claim not being as intelligent as them is an automatic deal-killer”?? We don’t know, because the author chose to group those statistics together for one gender but not for the other.
How did each gender answer the same question, phrased the same way?? The article doesn’t say.
I give it absolutely no credence, because the statistics appear to be skewed to make the point the author wanted to make.
What people say they want and what they actually do are two different things. I’m very suspicious of self-reported data and the blue/black, white/gold dress experiment didn’t help much.
The best part of love- each partner tends to think the other is better and they are very lucky to have them. Win win!
I think that the ideal spouse for a very highly ambitious person of either gender may be an equally intelligent individual whose ambitions are more limited.
Here I’m thinking of both the outgoing and incoming presidents of my alma mater. The outgoing one is a man; the incoming one is a woman. Both are married to fellow academics, and their spouses are professors who don’t aspire to leadership positions.
Contrast this with the theoretical situation where two university administrators, who both aspire to become university presidents, are married to each other. How the heck would they manage?
Also, contrast it with a theoretical situation in which a university administrator who aspires to become a university president is married to a much less intelligent individual. That might have worked well a couple of generations ago, but would it work now?
I think a person in a very stressful, demanding career needs a special kind of spouse. I hope Amal has chosen well!
There’s also the issue of cases where, say, both partners believe that they’ve married up—what do they count as? Also, what does it really mean to “marry up”? And how do you categorize someone who’s unattractive but extremely intelligent, or extremely attractive but unintelligent?
I’m suspicious of the underlying assumptions of the entire study.
This phenomenon doesn’t necessarily mean the one who doesn’t aspire to be college president is any less ambitious.
In many corners of academia, the really ambitious Profs who want to make a mark on their respective fields regard administrative positions including college presidency as a distraction at best from their main goal…to be top Prof in his/her department/field. A goal often defined as having a CV filled with publications with many citations, research grants, and possibly awards/plaudits from their respective fields.
To some academics, going into administrative positions in the university including the presidency is actually considered “stepping down” as such positions are regarded in a similar light as how marketing/sales positions are regarded among hardcore engineers/computer managers/employees in many engineering/computer technology companies.
In general, I would have to agree with the sentiment that all men ( if they are hetero) marry up, regardless of their sig others socioeconomic background.
I used to think all men marry up. After reading some posts from various female posters, I am not so sure. 
If you want to find women who are willing to marry down, read Dear Abby.