The Economist‘s Free Exchange blog posted about this map the other day, wondering how, even though nationally there are more single men than women in the 15-44 age group, there is such a dearth, particularly in the Northeast, of single men in big cities, and why there is a widespread perception that single women need to “fight” over the few remaining “good” men. S/he went on to attempt a complicated explanation using game theory as its basis.
Regardless of that, though, the post showed a remarkably arrogant eastern bias (yes, Virginia, there are other cities in the US besides New York), and failed to talk about the most interesting aspect of the map: the fact that in western cities there are far more single men than women, the opposite situation as on the east coast.
My theory as to the reversal of unfavorable gender ratios on opposite sides of the country is pretty simple: jobs. I think most people would agree that financial success or at least stability is a desirable quality in a potential mate, and in terms of well-paid singles, I think the demographics can pretty easily be put down (well, without hard data to support the idea) to the geographic concentrations of certain industries.
To elaborate, eastern cities like New York and Washington DC tend to have higher concentrations of jobs in finance, law, publishing, and the performing arts, while western cities like San Francisco and Seattle have higher concentrations of jobs in technology and science. The former industries have, I think it is fair to say, a much higher percentage of women than the latter. The reason young people come to urban areas is not to find mates, as the post would suggest, but to seek fortune, regardless of the young person’s gender. So people go where the jobs are.
And it follows, then, that more young professional women would then be more likely to go to New York, Washington and Boston, because the jobs in the industries more of them train for are there: financial firms, publishing firms, law firms, theaters. Conversely, young men with training in computer science or biotechnology will go where more of those jobs are: the west coast. Meaning that, in the end, there will be more well-paid single men on the west coast, and more well-paid single women on the east.