{
  "id": 5505371,
  "title": "It’s not me, it’s you",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/04/its-not-me-its-you",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-04T06:01:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Klement on Investing",
    "slug": "klement-on-investing",
    "url": "https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/its-not-me-its-you"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Every four years, this author publishes World Cup forecasts, claiming economists have a knack for meddling in everything, despite lacking expertise and should refrain from interfering. Occasionally, the author stumbles upon an economic study that appears to draw parallels. In this case, Rios-Rull, Seitz, and Tanaka constructed a model to explain evolving marriage and relationship preferences among men and women over time. They employed data from individuals born in 1870, 1930, and 1950 to estimate their preferences and the 'utility' derived from potential partners of the opposite sex. For the sake of focus, let's overlook the peculiar selection of birth cohorts and the model's 22 parameters, along with the uncertainty surrounding the discount factor used to calculate the net present value of finding a future partner. Instead, the emphasis will be placed on their baseline estimate of partner utility, differentiated by gender. According to the model, men generally find younger women aged 18 to 26 more attractive compared to older women. Conversely, men have a lower preference for girls under 18, considering them to provide minimal utility, which is a concern given the illegality of underage relationships. The author expresses apprehension regarding the minimal decrease in utility for underage partners. In contrast, women demonstrate clear differentiation in their preferences, with older men offering higher utility and boys under 18 possessing significantly negative utility. Young men aged 18 to 26 have near-zero utility for women. The author encourages reflection on these dynamics. Subsequently, the authors utilize the baseline model to analyze shifts in marriage behavior over time. The authors' abstract provides a succinct explanation of their findings: \"Women's preference for older husbands diminished across generations; men's preferences remained largely unchanged. Long-lasting love requires surviving the early stages, but the odds of survival plummeted from 97% to 44%. Divorce costs decreased significantly and depend on life stage. Through a competitive analysis of behavioral channels, the study reveals that the quality of matches, rather than mate-age preferences, is the primary driver of generational change.\"",
  "summary": "Every four years, I publish my World Cup forecasts as an exercise in showing that economists think they can meddle in everything, even though they have no clue and should better leave the topic alone.",
  "key_points": [
    "Men prefer younger women aged 18-26, while women favor older men.",
    "Preference for older husbands declined across generations for women.",
    "Divorce costs decreased significantly and depend on life stage."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}