While looking for a link to place in the previous post, I saw this graphic and remembered that I'd wanted to post about it weeks ago, but hadn't gotten around to doing so.
I saw it
posted here, and the original
is here. Reading the comments on the Washington Monthly page, I found some insightful analysis into the trends this map illustrates.
First, some liabilities.
- The map isn't calibrated by %, but by whole numbers, which means that only large populations can qualify, and that slight differences in very large populations will be magnified. NYC, for instance.
- The age range is too wide; 20-64, which extends far beyond what most people think of as "singles," and runs into the problem of widowers (who are predominantly female, especially under the age of 65).
- There's no racial breakdown, and since prisoners (disproportionately male) were evidently not counted, and most prisons aren't located in metropolitan areas anyway, this skews the numbers female in areas with large black populations, given the high rate of incarceration among young black males.
- It's unclear how illegal immigrants are counted. If they are, that would probably account for many of the blue dots in California, with its heavy population of largely male migrant workers.
- Sexual orientation isn't adjusted for, which really skews things in areas like the one I'm in. It's a cliche how much women in San Francisco bemoan the "Every guy is gay or taken." issue. (Guess I should move to the city?)
All that said, there's still plenty to explain and learn from. Many commenters pointed out that tech heavy industries are clustered in California, especially around LA and Silicon Valley, and those are heavily male. Others said that many industries in NYC skew female; fashion, publishing, media, etc. It's also likely that some of the blue dots would be surrounded by dart boards of tiny pink dots, thanks to young men moving to work in cities in greater numbers than do the women.
I'll buy most of those explanations, but as is usually the case in American society, they're largely devoted to explaining things from a male POV. What about the big pink dots, though? Why are there so many more women in almost every major city in the South, Midwest, and Northeast? It's not enough to say that men are moving to follow jobs in higher numbers than women, unless you're going to say that all those guys from New York and Alabama and Georgia moved to Phoenix and Dallas. Either the men all moved west of the Mississippi, or all the women from California moved to the East, and why this might be the case was not addressed by any explanations I've yet seen. This isn't 1849; men from New York aren't selling all they own to book passage on a clipper sailing around Cape Horn on the way to San Francisco and their fortune in the gold mines.
Labels: dating, society
