Male-Female Ratio: The "Effective Pool"

— by Paul Lo, 2RedBeans.com

[ English | 中文 ]

In my previous blog, I have talked about the male-female ratios among Chinese singles in Silicon Valley / Bay Area and across U.S. and the impact of interracial marriages on such ratios (see Myth Buster: Silicon Valley Male-Female Ratio). Based on that study, there are more young Chinese female than male above 25, but single male under 40 still outnumbered single female. However, is this really the most dominant factor in determining an individual's chance of finding a romantic partner?

Effective Pool

There are many other factors than the actual male-female ratio that are probably much more relevant. One is the effective pool, which is the pool of accessible, available candidates to a person that satisfy the person’s selection criteria. For instance, if a person doesn’t make himself accessible, say a guy that works in an environment with virtually no female and never comes out to meet girls, then no matter how many girls there are actually out there, it doesn’t matter. His effective pool is one with virtually nobody.

Setting high qualification criteria would also reduce the size of the effective pool. In the most extreme scenario, where nobody satisfies anybody, the effective pool would again be empty, regardless of how many single male and female are out there.

Competition

The number of potential competitors who may take candidates away from one’s effective pool is also a key factor. Single female in their 20s are typically considered the most preferred group of candidates among males from 20 to 40 (some of such female would consider even older male :-). Some single men in their early 20s would find it particularly hard to compete in such landscape given that older male with more experience and resources are often considered to be more attractive. To such young single male, and especially those who also have limited time to explore or are limited by the work or living environment otherwise, the “male-to-female” ratio might indeed feel like “many-to-one” even when the actual single male-to-female ratio within their respective age group is close to 50-50.

To Chinese male who are primarily only interested in Chinese female, the presence of non-Chinese male in the competition would definitely make the situation feels much more intense as well, though in reality most of the married Chinese female in U.S. ended up having a Chinese spouse (about 81.5%, compared to 89.5% for married Chinese male; see our other blog).

Could We Turn The Effective Pool Around?

Since a lot of the people we came across who raised the male-female ratio issue in relation to their difficulty in finding a romantic partner tend to be younger male, I began with examples that help illustrate how such perception could be formed. However, as we look around the "pools" elsewhere, we actually found that some people even experienced the opposite. We heard about this pretty often even among Chinese female in Silicon Valley.

A person's effective pool is strongly influenced by their particular social circles, personality, and circumstances. For instance, I kept seeing more single female than male showing up in many of the young singles events in the Bay Area. If most of the guys don't come out to events that certain female tend to go, even if there are actually more single male out there, from that female's perspective, the "accessible" pool of guys would feel very small regardless of what the global ratios seem to entail.

These are only some of the many factors that can affect a person's chance of finding a successful romantic partner. Many of these factors are malleable and can be tackled to some extent, for example by:

1. actively seeking out channels whether online or in their neighborhoods to increase one's accessibility and exposure;
2. understanding and adjusting for the needs of the candidates in their effective pools more;
3. reducing/eliminating criteria that don't really matter long-term;
4. lowering the bar of entry to learn about one another;
5. many more :-)

Depending on one's own circumstances, some people may find these easier to tackle than others, but many of the underlying difficulties can be circumvented over time, such as accurately figuring out one's needs and desires, learning how to present yourself better, understanding how others really perceive you, building up the desirable qualities for your targets, etc.

A number of other external factors are also worth further discussions, such as the diversity resulted from our rapidly changing social value systems and issues arising from the peculiar demographics of Chinese immigrants. I will go over each of these in greater details in future blogs.

Related Blogs

• Myth Buster: Silicon Valley Male-Female Ratio
• Interracial Marriages for Chinese and Other Asian Races

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