U.S. Study Finds High‑Income, Non‑College Men Preferred by College‑Educated Women

A new research project by the National Bureau of Economic Research, authored by scholars from Yale University, Cornell University and Harvard University, examined marriage patterns in the United States. The study shows that women with four‑year college degrees now outnumber men with such degrees by about 1.6 million, and the ratio of college‑educated men to women has fallen from 1.8 to 0.8.

Because fewer college‑educated men are available, college‑educated women are increasingly marrying high‑earning men who lack a college diploma. The share of women married to such partners rose from 2.3 % among those born in 1930 to 9.6 % among those born in 1980. These non‑college husbands earn an average of $68,400 annually, compared with $46,000 for comparable men who are not in this marriage group. Marriage rates for college‑educated women remain above 70 %, while rates for women without a college degree fell from 78.7 % to 52.4 %.

The authors project that more than half of college‑non‑graduate women born in the mid‑1990s may remain unmarried by age 45, highlighting a shift in the U.S. marriage market driven by education and income dynamics.