Marriage & Testosterone Levels
(I)
Here is something I worry about: https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/maraprmay-2016/why-is-marriage-thriving-among-and-only-among-the-affluent/
It seems that marriage is drastically declining in our society. E.g., 41% of babies are born to unwed mothers.
Q: Why did this happen? It looks like we don’t really know.
You might think it’s because the “incentives” to marry have declined – there is less stigma (or no stigma anymore) attached to pre-marital sex or illegitimate children, and women are more financially independent, so they no longer need financial support from a man.
But that wouldn’t explain the fact that educated white people have escaped the trend – they’re still getting married at about the same rate they were 50 years ago. The decline has been entirely among minorities and lesser-educated whites. If the decline were due to economic factors (or even the social stigma), why didn’t it affect educated white people?
Anyway, whatever the explanation, why is it a problem? A couple of reasons:
(1)
One problem is that marriage seems to be better for children. From the above article: “kids raised in married-parent households are much less likely to grow up in poverty, more likely to do better in school, and more likely to move up the economic ladder even if they start out poor.”
Objection: Maybe that’s a selection effect. Maybe people with certain character traits – say, the ability to make long-term commitments – are both (a) more likely to get married, and (b) more likely to do well in school, to move up the economic ladder, etc. Furthermore, maybe those traits are partly genetic. In that case, we’d see a correlation between having married parents and doing well in school, moving up the economic ladder, etc. That would happen even if your parents’ marriage doesn’t actually cause you to have those good outcomes.
Reply: If that’s so, the decline in marriage rates is still a cause for concern. It means that we’re seeing fewer people with the (presumably desirable) traits that lead to both marriage & economic success.
(2)
Another problem is that the decline in marriage probably means more people are lonely and unhappy. Most of these unmarried people will say (in surveys) that they want to get married, which makes sense: who doesn’t want love, and a partner to share everything with? Sitting on the couch with your spouse is a million times better than sitting on the couch alone eating pizza every night. (Hence, I recommend getting married to any readers who are considering it. Caveat: Only works if you find awesome partner.)
But somehow, more and more people are finding themselves unable to find a suitable partner, I guess?
(II)
Now here is something I’m not especially worried about, but that some of my Facebook friends are worried about: https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20120325/generational-decline-in-testosterone-levels-observed
Testosterone levels are declining in American men. It looks like it’s about 1.2% per year, after controlling for age (e.g., 30-year-old men in the year 2000 had ~1.2% lower testosterone than 30-year-old people had in 1999; I think that’s what they’re saying). That is a lot. I think the decline is international, too.
There might be negative health consequences of this, but I don’t think that’s what my FB friends (who shall remain nameless here) are worried about. I think they are worried that this is leading to some kind of social decline.
The reason I’m not worried about it is perhaps made clear by my previous posts (https://fakenous.net/?p=2223; https://fakenous.net/?p=2207). Human beings evolved with traits that are beneficial for the reproductive success of the individual with those traits. But these traits can very well be harmful to the rest of the world. High testosterone is one of those characteristics. Men probably evolved to have drastically higher testosterone levels than women because this chemical makes them more aggressive, and that aggression promoted their reproductive success – even while it caused untold destruction and misery for the world in general.
(III)
Now, why are these two topics in the same post? Because it occurred to me that the two topics –marriage rates and testosterone levels – might be connected.
My first thought was that marriage rates might affect testosterone levels. Perhaps when there is more acceptance of single parenthood in society, that affects who reproduces. In particular, maybe that causes more high-T males to reproduce. This could be true because high-T males might be less willing to marry compared to low-T males, because they want to have many sexual partners. If women only have children within marriage, that would mean that the high-T males would reproduce less. (They might have more sex while they are young, but this would not produce actual offspring.)
The problem is that this theory predicts the opposite of what we observe: testosterone levels should increase as the marriage rate declines. (Caveat: I don't have statistics on testosterone levels in different ethnic and socioeconomic groups, so they could be increasing in some groups.)
Another hypothesis: Maybe high testosterone levels actually cause more marriage. This could be because it causes one to make stronger efforts to pursue a mate. Perhaps fewer people are getting married these days because they are dating less, and they are dating less because men are pursuing women less, and men are doing that because they have lower testosterone.
If that’s right, then there is a reason to worry about the declining testosterone levels after all.
Anyone have other ideas about what is causing either of these trends? Or what could be done about them?