According to college women : Seventy Percent of men are not marriage material ?

This article by Christopher Ng celebrates his last day as a bachelor. He ties the knot with his long suffering girlfriend on July 1st 2007.

This is a very naughty article. The author did not get a bachelor party.

This lady friend I know is a Ph.d Candidate in the NUS electrical engineering department. I love to tease her (in a way an older brother would.) about dating all the men in her life. Normally I would choose the shortest and ugliest guy in the public speaking group I’m in and then ask her,” So what do you think of this one? ” What would then follow would be a round of protests.” Too short!”, she would say, or “ Listen to way he talk I know he cannot make it! ”

Initially, during the bad old days when I had to hunt for a mate as a lowly paid IT engineer, I would think that Singaporean women are at fault because of high expectations. After all, after quite a few bad experiences and heartbreak, I quit the Singaporean graduate woman market completely and at the time of writing I should already be married to Malaysian girl.

But recently after reading a book on Evolutionary Psychology, I realized that I was wrong. Some things are simply not subject to negotiation. It’s not about Singaporean women, it’s about our ancestral roots and how as a species we adapt to hostile natural environment of the prehistoric age.

The field of evolutionary psychology is a multifaceted one which touches on almost all aspects of human existence. Many behaviors come about not because of social conditioning but due to our minds adapting to the harsh living environments in the past. As such, we’re prehistoric Neanderthals when we subconsciously make decisions about how to live in spite of the amount of progress we have made as human beings.

Based on the findings of evolutionary psychology, women engage in long term mating strategies which would maximise their chances of producing children. As such, all psychological studies point to the fact that women value economic resources, financial prospects and high social status as primary traits that they see in a guy.

In a 1990 article in the Journal of Personality, Kenrick, Sdalla and Groth did an extensive study on the minimum acceptable earning capacity American college women desire in a guy. The original intention was to compare gender differences in the emphasis on income and economic power. The results were as follows:

American college women will date a man if he earns above the 45% percentile in a population.

American college women will have sexual relations with a man who earns above 48% percentile.

American college women will have a steady relationship with a man who earns above the 60% percentile.

American college women will marry a man who earns above 70% percentile.

Let’s make an interesting postulate that Singaporean lady university graduates have the same preferences as American college women.

We can make estimates on how much a Singaporean man will need to bring home the bacon to make good marriage material for our highly intelligent and capable women graduates.

Let us begin by supposing that the man would normally contribute 75% of the household income and derive their desired salaries from household income figures in 2003:

To be dating material, a man’s got to earn at least $2,025 per month.

Sexual relationships, a man’s got to earn about $2,530 per month.

Going steady would require about $3,225 per month of income

Only men who make more than $4,000 per month will make the grade to qualify for marriage material.

Granted, there are many flaws with this rough estimate, for one thing, higher income households may see the financial contribution of the husband being reduced to 50-60%. The other factor is that while financial resources and earning capacity are the most commonly sought after traits, women also want men to be kind, athletic, have symmetric facial features and have an affinity for children.

These series of scientific findings may also explain Singaporean men’s desire to have foreign spouses, especially those of Chinese or Vietnamese origin. On the day I collected my marriage certificate, my wife remarked that ROM was packed with couples with many wives to be of PRC origin. Perhaps it is easier to benchmark a Singaporean man’s income against a Vietnamese or Chinese scale with our high GDP per capita figures.

On the flip side, critics of the Pinkerton syndrome will have to accept that women who go for foreign Caucasian men are not being biased against the boys back home but subconsciously attracted to them based on higher expatriate income salaries. Yes, picnics with Chardonnay at Labrador Park are a good idea but nothing beats the ability to show your paramour that you can build a stable nest for your children in the future.

So what can the Singaporean bachelor do?

The important takeaway for men is that if you do not subscribe to self-improvement and make success a primary motivation in your lives, your ability to procreate may well be at stake.

Of course, there are things which are within your control and those which are out of your control. Case in point, there is very little you can do about your asymmetrical features unless you wish to go under the knife. You can work out to improve your appearance and health but there are many IPPT gold medals out there in this country. There is also the option of working harder and putting more effort into your career. But in a place like Singapore where we are already one of the hardest working folks in the world, this strategy may not bode well for your health.

Your financial independence and accumulation of economic resources is one of the easier traits that you can control with some modest effort.

This is where investing for dividends come in again. Owning a portfolio of dividend stocks can do wonders for your level of economic resources and regular income. It is independent of your performance at work and if you start early, you will reach a comfortable level of income which will not be an impediment to finding the mate of your dreams. There is also no need to show-off and lead extravagant lives (that is a valid short-term mating strategy for men). Given time, the confidence you gain from taming the markets will shine through when you engage the women around you.

Of course, you can come to the same conclusion as 25% men in this country. You can just give up and seek spouses from outside the country.

Now wouldn’t that be a rude thing to do?
———

Christopher Ng Wai Chung, 32, is an IT Project manager who dabbles in personal finance and wealth management. His books, Growing your tree of Prosperity and Harvesting the Fruits of Prosperity, meld his philosophical ideals with the realities of seeking financial independence in Singapore. His books can now be found in all major bookstores in Singapore.

His own blog can be found in treeofprosperity.blogspot.com. He can be reached at waichung.ng@gmail.com.