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In the US, single women generally outnumber men in age groups over 35. However, in younger age groups, single men outnumber women.

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/02/ ... en/385369/

Makes evolutionary sense. Younger women are coveted by males for their fertility while older men are coveted by females for their access to resources. Younger men lose out because they are just getting established in their career and typically have fewer "resources" than older, more-established men, while older women have lower "value" in the dating pool because they are viewed as less fertile than their younger counter-parts.

It happens largely because there are generally more male babies born than female, so in younger age groups there is a surplus of males. However women generally have a longer life expectancy than men. As age increases, so does the ratio of single women.

I don't know about there being more male babies being born than more female babies naturally. Every child that is conceived has only a 50-50 chance of being either gender, so that theory (that one gender is more likely to be conceived than than the other) does not appear valid to me. Also, male fetuses are more likely to be spontaneously aborted than female fetuses in times of internal or external stressors suffered by the mother, so the opposite - more female than males are being born - could actually be true.

Secondly, given that a woman can only reproduce so many times in her life, while a male could - theoretically - have unlimited offspring should also stagger the odds of Nature producing more females than males to ensure the continuation of a species.

As an example, in some patriarchal, misogynistic cultures, the introduction of ultrasounds that could detect the sex of the unborn fetus lead to mass termination of female fetuses in the 80s, to the extent that these cultures are currently facing a large male : female ratio imbalance. However, the government (at least in India) acted quickly to make sex determination illegal in the early 90s, and the ratio moved back closer to 50:50.

I still think that the reason why there are more single males in the younger adult age groups, and more single women in the older adult age groups has more to do with mate selection preferences of the sexes than with sheer numbers. It makes evolutionary sense that males would prefer to partner with females in their prime, who are likely to be fertile and offer them an opportunity to pass on the males' genes. Similarly, also from a purely evolutionary purpose, females would choose to partner with males who can offer their offspring greater access to resources, which resources - at least in the distant past - would have made all the difference to said offsprings' chances of survival. A younger male's offspring would probably have less odds of survival to adulthood than the offspring of an older, more-experienced, and resource-rich male.

As an interesting aside, many folks don't frown on older men - younger women relationships, even when there is a huge age gap (20+ years) between the partners. However, even in this day and age, many are unable to digest an older woman - younger man relationship. The larger the age difference between this couple, the more likely the relationship is to draw the ire of those closest to them. "Cradle robber", "cougar" etc are terms of derision to describe such a relationship while the older man - younger woman relationship is rarely talked about. The latter is accepted as completely normal, or as the Amish would say, "Cis im blut".

And, yes, in modern times, given women's longer life expectancy, and given that child birth is no longer the awful, life-threatening peril that it used to be, there would be more senior females than males.

It's not a theory, it's a fact. It's a statistic.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... than-girls

If there is a women's only forum on wp, then there should still be a non-women's-only women's forum, the reason being that I as a female may wish to discuss some issues mostly affecting women in an open forum with women and men, and I don't feel comfortable in a women's only forum. Making the current women's forum women only would exclude not only men, but some women too. There are probably other women who wouldn't feel comfortable in a women's only forum either.

The truth of this has already been clearly demonstrated in this and similar topics going back years.

If members use the "women only" tag in titles within Women's Discussion this should satisfy both groups (or neither, as seems more likely, people being as they are.)

Maybe if they said, "Women Only, Please?"

Dianthus,

Nope. Even these guys say that the odds are "even-steven" for either gender to be conceived.

They claim, however, that more female fetuses than male fetuses are lost during the middle course of pregnancies, which leads to more males being born than females. They say that they got these numbers from birth records, abortion records, miscarriage data, and embryos in storage, all from North America. Regardless of where they sourced the data, there are conflicting variables at work here. If Nature gives both sexes an equal opportunity to be conceived, but more female fetuses than male fetuses make it past early pregnancy, that would mean that by Week 12, more female fetuses scheduled to be born than males. If, however, unhealthy females then end up being spontaneously or selectively terminated during the second trimester, or if people then proceeded to terminate female fetuses due to their preference for sons around Week 16 which is when many people find out the gender of their unborn children, then it may appear that more females than males are lost prenatally. However, such appearances are entirely deceptive, given that more females made it past the "first round of elimination / extermination", to begin with.

Again, the whole argument of more males than females being born seems counter-intuitive to me. Why on Earth would Nature want more males born when a species is more dependent on the number of fertile females present to ensure its continuation / survival ? Unless Nature is saying that our species has outlived its welcome on the Planet and it's time to make us go "bye bye" a la the dinosaurs ?

Again, it's a statistical fact that more males than females are born in the US.

Yes, of course, numbers don't lie. So, if the numbers say that there is a whole percent more males being born than females, then it is what it is.

However, I just don't agree with the explanations, especially that female fetuses are lost during pregnancy than males. Also, 51-50 is roughly equal and closer to 50-50 ("even-steven") than, say, 60-40.

Finally, in my humble opinion, it is overly simplistic to say that there are more younger single men than women because more boys are born than girls are ! More boys than girls tend to suffer from significant disabilities, and may never date or actively look for a romantic partner. When you adjust the numbers for these boys from the pool of "single men", and given that only 1% more males than girls are born, then obviously "numbers" are not the reason why males are less likely to be single than females in young adulthood.

There are some places in the US that have more women than men.

There are some places in the US that have more men than woman.

For the world, the ratio is 107 women to 100 men.

After the age of 75, there are, definitely, considerably more women than men. At age 85, there are MANY more women than men.

However....in the grand scheme of things....who really cares?

What really matters is your microcosmic existence, not macrocosmic figures.

Different strokes for different folks.

"My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts!"

The earliest known published occurrence of this phrase appeared in a 1945 article titled "Don't Confuse Me With Facts!", by Roy S. Durstine in the periodical "Advertising & Selling". Durstine was a prominent specialist in advertising, and his article described a meeting between an ad agency and a client:

I have been perusing this forum for awhile now. I will admit, I have cracked out laughing multiple times. I wish to make my thoughts clear on this matter. a female only would probably end up being similar to a female only school. you ever seen one of those? without men around women are FAR more mean and lazy and just downright creepy. you think I am kidding? there was a poll in japan, as a test. those perverted Japanese... to see who kept a cleaner school males or females. so they took an all male school, and an all female school and rated their cleanliness. men won, BY A LANDSLIDE. we were more cordial, nicer, cleaner. interesting factoid. men without women are gentlemen to each other mostly. women without men cause a freaking death show. this isn't opinion, this is from years of study. women by themselves are way crazier than men. by all means, get yourself a forum. it will become deader than a door-nail as most girls will STILL post to forums men can post in and it will be worst the the male forums. LMAO

There was a single study, in Japan, of one all-male school vs all-female school and the all-male school was 'nicer'.

And from this you extrapolate that a women-only section of WP will, what, have puddles of urine on the floor and constant hair-pulling?

You want to know what men think of each other? Look at the ease and eagerness with which they move to kill each other.

ETA I should 'fess up that I'm being a little tongue in cheek with that remark, in response to your silliness. But, still...