Scaring Single People
Austin 'marriage market' mapped in ridiculous new Pew Research study
Last week, the Pew Research Center released a study that found a record number of Americans have never been married. The study was widely covered in the media, with everyone from NPR to The New York Times speculating on the decline of marriage in the U.S. (The recession! Gay marriage! Living out of wedlock!)
On the coattails of this study, the Pew Research Center released a map on October 2 that analyzes the "marriage market" for the largest metro areas in the U.S.
The map analyzed the following factors to determine the best place to snag a mate: population of unmarried people ages 25-34, ratio of men to women, number of employed men and number of employed women. (If you're over the age of 35, not heterosexual, in school or deviate in any way from those metrics, this study is not for you and you have to find your own marriage map somewhere else.)
In conjunction with the map, Pew released an eye-roll-inducing study called, "The best and worst cities for women looking to marry." When it comes to availability, the Austin-Round Rock metro area falls fairly close to average, coming out slightly in favor of young single women with an average of 114 men for every 100 women.
Austin-area employment was higher than most of the U.S. on both side, with an average 89 employed men for every 100 women, and 70 employed women for every 100 men. This should be pretty unsurprising considering Austin's unemployment rate is much lower than the national average.
The highest ratio of men to women belongs to the Hanford-Corcoran, California metro area, which sits about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The highest ratio of women to men is in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
So, there you have it. Straight Austin women who fall in that 25-34 age gap have a slightly above average chance of getting married — if getting married is something they want to do.
