As if bright women don’t have enough to worry about — what withon ramps and off ramps, andwage gapsandCarly being fired, now we have this: in its little page of curious studies, “Primary Sources,”The Atlantic Monthlycites a British study that found that for every 15-point increase in IQ over the average, a woman’s chances of marrying drops by 60 percent.
When my editor dropped that bombshell on my desk, I did what any smart woman would do: I instantly called myhusbandto complain. Not about workplace harrassment, mind you, althoughJohn Byrnedoes love to stroll around the office making trouble on slow days. But to get the facts.
In times like this, it helps to be married to a sociologist, who has the latest data at his fingertips. Within seconds, he pointed me to more recent data than the meager little Scottish study the Atlantic referenced.
TheNational Marriage Project at Rutgershelpfully publishes anannotated pageputting a lot of these stupid myths to rest. Among the findings, this from the esteemed American Sociological Review: College-educated women’s chances of marrying are better than less well-educated women. The one caveat: the growing gender gap in college education (that is, significantly more women are now getting degrees than guys), may make it harder in the future for smart women to find similarly well-educated men.
Bottom line: the new trophy guy for smart gal may be a dumb blonde.