"...when towns and counties lose manufacturing jobs, fertility and marriage rates among young adults go down, too."

Economic forces making US men less appealing partners, researchers say

"These blue collar gigs were and are special: they pay more than comparable jobs at that education level in the service sector, and they deliver way more than just a paycheck. The jobs are often dangerous and physically demanding, giving a sense of solidarity with co-workers. Not coincidentally, these jobs are also incredibly male-dominated — becoming even more so between 1990 and 2010.

But since 1980, a full third of all manufacturing jobs — five million since 2000 — have evaporated, making guys less appealing as potential husbands in the process.

Dorn and his colleagues find that when towns and counties lose manufacturing jobs, fertility and marriage rates among young adults go down, too. Unmarried births and the share of children living in single-parent homes go up. Meanwhile, places with higher manufacturing employment have a bigger wage gap between men and women, and a higher marriage rate.

“On simple financial grounds, the males are more attractive partners in those locations because they benefit disproportionately from having those manufacturing jobs around,” he tells Thrive Global.

It underscores how in the U.S., the norms around money, marriage, and gender remain — perhaps surprisingly — traditional."