Interesting Sex Stats About Monogamy And Multiple Partners

[Thorlol]

Well lookie here, we got ourselves a regular old gender war, boys (and girls)

Statistics are complicated and can be difficult to read given all the factors involved but the important things to remember are that the grass is always greener on the other side and it's definitely the other genders fault.

But because I'm of a mood to pour fire on the thread and watch it burn, have at this one:


Source

Couples over 50 years old who get divorced lose around 50% of their wealth.

That had me laughing. If a couple together owns 100% of their wealth and they split I would assume they each have 50% left. Atleast that is the desired outcome...

Being close friends with a divorcee increases the likelihood of being divorced by 147%.

What the actual... So if my best friend breaks up with his girlfriend then I am in danger? Or does that only apply to the couples who at some point said 'yes' in front of many witnesses?

Damn I love statistics.

 

[KeithD]

That had me laughing. If a couple together owns 100% of their wealth and they split I would assume they each have 50% left. Atleast that is the desired outcome...

Umm, I think it means that couples over fifty have gotten past their "set-up" costs in living together, but if they split, they both face a new round of set-up costs that reduces the nest egg they had accumulated together. I think this is probably true. Two new households are almost invariably going to be more expensive than the one they had before splitting up.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That had me laughing. If a couple together owns 100% of their wealth and they split I would assume they each have 50% left. Atleast that is the desired outcome...

I haven't seen the study on which that figure is based, but I think for that kind of research the values are usually adjusted according to household size. (Though it's not as simple as just dividing by the number of people, because it's cheaper for two adults to live together than as two singles; see https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/income-inequality/about/metrics/equivalence.html for an example of how income has been adjusted. I assume one could do the same for wealth.)

So it's not just that the wealth is split between them. It'd be things like having to sell joint property at a loss, moving and disruption potentially cutting into income, and so on. If you're going from a household where one person was doing a high-income job and the other was doing the domestic side of things, then the earner now has to be doing a lot more domestic stuff, which may cut into their income from the day job. Meanwhile, somebody who's been a stay-at-home partner for twenty years is going to have a lot of difficulty finding work, and it won't pay nearly as well as their partner's job, so they're collectively worse off.

What the actual... So if my best friend breaks up with his girlfriend then I am in danger? Or does that only apply to the couples who at some point said 'yes' in front of many witnesses?

It doesn't necessarily mean the friendship creates the risk. We tend to be friends with people who have similar attitudes to things like relationships and divorce, so if your friend is the kind of person who's willing to divorce rather than toughing out a bad marriage, it's more likely that you will be too.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Umm, I think it means that couples over fifty have gotten past their "set-up" costs in living together, but if they split, they both face a new round of set-up costs that reduces the nest egg they had accumulated together. I think this is probably true. Two new households are almost invariably going to be more expensive than the one they had before splitting up.

Yep, I couldn't find a copy of the full study that this one was based on, but from what I could find it looked like that was the kind of thing they were talking - and not just the immediate loss in wealth from dividing the household, but the loss down the line as it cuts into careers etc.