Money and dating
Is feminism a scam?
No. But it changed the maths of dating: the more a woman earns, the fewer single men earn more than her. Here is what that does to the pool.
"Is feminism a scam?" gets typed into search bars when dating feels hard. The short answer is no. Feminism is a long-running set of movements for equal rights, not a product someone sold you. In a 2020 survey, 61% of American women said the word "feminist" describes them well.
But there's something real and measurable behind the question. Women's education and incomes have risen fast, and one old dating rule hasn't changed with them: "he should earn more than me."
What changed
- Women earned about 58% of US bachelor's degrees awarded in 2022.
- In 29% of US marriages, husband and wife now earn about the same, and in 16% the wife is the main earner (Pew Research Center, 2023).
- Economists Bertrand, Kamenica and Pan found a sharp drop in couples where the wife earns just over half of the household income, compared with just under half. Their explanation: many couples still avoid a wife out-earning her husband.
The rule meets the data
If you want a man who earns more than you, your income sets the size of your pool. Here is the share of single or divorced straight men aged 27 to 37 who earn at least each amount a year, in local currency.
| Country | 50k+ | 80k+ | 100k+ | 150k+ | 200k+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 62% | 36% | 24% | 9% | 4% |
| United States | 57% | 32% | 23% | 10% | 5% |
| Canada | 48% | 26% | 16% | 5% | 2% |
| New Zealand | 65% | 30% | 16% | 4% | 1% |
| United Kingdom | 19% | 5% | 3% | 1% | 1% |
A woman earning 50,000 who wants a man who earns more can choose from more than half of single men her age in Australia, the US and New Zealand. At 100,000 that falls to about a quarter in Australia and the US and about one in six in Canada and New Zealand. At 150,000 it's about one in ten in Australia and the US, and one in 20 to 25 in Canada and New Zealand. In the UK the pound makes it much steeper: only 2.9% of single men in that age group earn £100,000 or more.
So who got scammed?
Nobody. Women gained options at work, and the pool only shrinks when "he must earn more" stays on the list. Pew also found that even in marriages where both earn about the same, wives still spend more time on housework and caregiving. Old expectations change more slowly than paychecks.
Try it on the meter: set the minimum income to your own salary, then to half of it, and watch the count.
Income is personal income before tax, from each country's tax and census data. A man's income is not the same as his wealth or his ambition, and couples combine incomes, so a lower earner is not a worse partner.
Run your own list on the meter
Estimates come from the same model as the meter: official population, census, health-survey and tax data for each country, combined age by age. Filters are treated as independent within each age, so treat the results as estimates, not a head count. The full method and sources are under "How it's calculated" on the meter.