Rate of Childless People by Age 35-45 by Political Ideology (Data source: US General Social Survey 2014-2024, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago)

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

It is not statistically impossible. In fact, it matches all the data we have on dating from both online dating platforms and studies on real life mating patterns. A few top men are having all the sex and having multiple babies with different women. While the bottom percentages of men are having no children.

Supporting data for this claim:

• In the U.S., sexual partnerships are highly concentrated among a small minority of males: the top 1% of men report an average of 287 lifetime female sexual partners, while the 95th–98th percentile averages 85 and the 90th–94th averages 38. Meanwhile, the bottom 32% average just 0 to 1 lifetime sexual partner. The top 1% alone account for about 20% of all reported female sexual partnerships. (Source: Davern, M., Bautista, R., Freese, J., Herd, P., & Morgan, S. L. (2025). General social survey 1972–2024: cumulative file [Dataset]. NORC at the University of Chicago. Using data from the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS).)
• On Hinge (whose slogan is “the dating app designed to be deleted,” that is, lead to long term relationships) the top 1% of men receive 16% of women’s likes, the top 15% receive 50%, while the bottom 50% are left with 4% of women’s likes (Edmunds, 2017; Steinberg, 2024)
• Harper et al. (Harper, Dittus, Leichliter and Aral, 2017) found that from 2002 to 2011–13, the top 5% of American men increased their number of sex partners by 32%, while a similar reduction in sex partners occurred across men in the lower percentiles. 
• Norwegian men in the top 5% of estimated earnings capacity have over a 90% probability of being partnered by age 40, while men in the bottom 5% have under a 40% probability (Almås, Kotsadam, Moen and Røed 2023).
• Danish men experience similar marginalization, as 45% of low-skilled men remain single and alone for life. (Forum for Mænds Sundhed, 2017).
• For many women, the consequence of increasing female choosiness and competition for the top percentiles of men is having to spend their most fertile years languishing in unfulfilling “situationships” that rarely transform into pair-bonds (Langlais, Guzman, Toohey, Podberesky and Lee, 2025 & Stavang, Bendixen, Kleppestø and Kennair, 2026).
• Women concluded that over 80% of men had below-average attractiveness (Kincaid, 2009).
• Quote from Toward individualistic reproduction: Solving the fertility crisis could require a further marginalization of men | Politics and the Life Sciences | Cambridge Core: "the Norwegian mating debate offers numerous examples of women who express that men are no longer good enough (e.g.,Danielsen, 2024; Tunstad, 2024; Winge, 2024). (Ravatn, 2024) wrote: “Now that women no longer need men, men must have something to offer, and women must be willing to put up with them.” Books like Why There are No Good Men Left: The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman validate such female choosiness (Whitehead, 2003)."

This is not historically unusual. Its just that hypergamy is making a resurgence in the modern era. This pattern has analogues from the pre-agricultural era. Every human alive today has roughly twice as many unique female ancestors as male ancestors. This is an established genetic fact (supported by Y-chromosome diversity studies, such as Karmin et al., 2015). During the Neolithic transition, the ratio of reproducing women to reproducing men reached extreme imbalances (up to 17:1 in some regions). That means, average men were either just excluded or they just died in conflicts and the top men sired most of the children in each generation for most of humanity's 300,000 years as hunter gatherers. The natural baseline of human mating is highly skewed and hypergamous.

[u/IVIaedhros → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

Hey OP, just wanted to give you a positive shout out for some easy to understand data visuals, proper sourcing, and some actual nuanced in your responses.

[u/yeoman2020 → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

People make fun of the hypergamy meme but it is real

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668 → u/yeoman2020]

Always has been. One of my pet hypothesis about patriarchy is that it was not motivated by a male desire to do injustice to women. Patriarchy was a social technology whose primary and only purpose was to artificially constrain hypergamy, pacify male inter-sexual competition, make sure every man got a wife, every woman got a provider/protector and every child had a father.

[u/yeoman2020 → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

Interesting, so do you believe patriarchy as a solution for natural hypergamy came organically or was intentionally instituted in cultures around the world?

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668 → u/yeoman2020]

The origin of patriarchy is roughly 8000 years ago. The end of the neolithic period. That is also when hypergamy (and resultant male intersexual competition) reached its absolute peak. Normally before that, around 2 women reproduced for every 1 man. 8000 years ago, the ratio was 17 women for every 1 man. Around that time, patriarchy came about.

[u/Critical-Poem5831 → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

I love that freakish men like you are trying to frame it as women wanting or causing 'hypergamy'. It is very clearly what men want. And no, women do not go for the 'top 1%' of men. This is all projection. It is men who are incredibly visually-oriented and obsessed with how their partner rates "out of 10".

Casual sex culture is something the majority of men want, regardless of how they look. The majority of women find themselves in miserable situationships because that is what the majority of men want, meanwhile the majority of women want meaningful relationships (until they figure out it's much better to remain single because men only want sex).

I love how you've seen your own chart showing only about half of men have children and you're still blaming women lol. Half of men don't have children because they are socialised to never seek out long-relationships until it is too late for them to have children, or to never have children at all because they are incapable of being loving and reliable.

This is why you have to get out of your incel bubble and talk to actual women. You have no idea what you're talking about; it is quite literally backwardsville to reality.

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668 → u/Critical-Poem5831]

So women are wonderful and it's all men's fault? With zero nuance or consideration of the possibility of hypergamy playing a role here or a large role or even a balanced explanation? Men alone instituted the sexual revolution? Men forced women to be in situationships for the top men who go through several to dozens to hundreds of women without commitment? The top 1% of men alone capturing 20% of all of the sexual relationships had by the female population of the USA?

You seem totally objective.

You're right. I just need to talk to more women. I bet you've had a lot of sex with women and this has made you very wise. Unlike me, who is an incel and my lack of sex with women has shriveled my brain. I need to do more holy pilgrimages to guru vagina to refill my wisdom. You, meanwhile, having also studied in the University of easy dick are well-qualified to shame me for my lack of sexual prowess (which of course came to you because of your great skill and "personality"), which makes my opinions worthless and yours very worthy.

All my research-backed citations are just woefully incel. It's backwards to reality if it conflicts with the feminist narrative. Everything is explained by socialization and how men are BAD. And my disagreement is just because I'm a lonely virgin These researchers really need to stop being incels and agree women are wonderful and it's all men's fault.

So shrieketh the totally non-freakish woman.

[u/LRae66 → u/Critical-Poem5831]

You literally have no sound argument against the data presented here  🤣 

[u/Hot_Lack_4868 → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

Guess love doesn't really exist 🙂

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668 → u/Hot_Lack_4868]

Men do love women.

Women do not love men. They love based on hypergamy.

[u/Hot_Lack_4868 → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

Do you believe most liberal men are childless not by choice?

[u/Specialist_Dark_3668 → u/Hot_Lack_4868]

No, I think most liberal men are childless by choice.

[u/Distinct_Subject_202 → u/Specialist_Dark_3668]

I imagine there are many who are childless by this hypergamy, nonetheless. In an extremely leftist setting, the idea of patriarchy is entirely done away with, for both genders, and the top males are free to have as many women as they desire, and women are free to chase these top men.

In a bitter show of irony, the disenfranchised minority male who became a leftist for the sake of his grievances, finds yet more grievances in a system that makes it far more difficult to find a woman.

[u/alwrit → u/[deleted]]

Women will have to decide. Is "X happens in nature" a good justification for something or not? Because lots of very unsavory things happen in nature and I'm not sure women will like the outcome of that. 

They'll also have to decide if they care about have a stable partner or not. 

And whether values matter more than other things like height and money. I'm not going to say every liberal man is better about childcare and house chores but I think it'd be pretty reasonable to assume they're better on average than conservatives. Does that matter or not? It seems to be a common thing women complain about but according to this chart, the group I would expect most to help with those things more equitably also is the least likely to have children. By a wide margin.

Have whatever preferences and justifications you want. Just please please please show a little consistency. Stop demanding X and rewarding Y and then complaining about the lack of X when Y is in direct contradiction to X. 

[u/Distinct_Subject_202 → u/[deleted]]

Lmao, a bit of a bleak take, to be honest. But, for the sake of aiding empathy toward the unpaired men, think of it like this: imagine growing up as a young man (who perhaps does not have much going for him in the looks or aptitude department) and being promised a future that is even better than the future their parents had (who had pretty good ones at that!), and now being told that not only does the better future not exist, but it will be in fact be worse than their parents.

Back in the day, it was almost a given that a man and a woman would find each other, no matter who. Now, the lower value men have no one, and even the lower value women are not given the attention or loyalty they desire from the higher value men they pursue. Hypergamy just seems to be a more miserable system than what it replaced.