The New Marriage of Unequals: When Smart Women Say “I Do” to Guys Without Degrees

Monday, March 31, 2025.

Once upon a time, in a postwar America that reeked of Brylcreem and paternalism, college-educated men married secretaries, nurses, and high school sweethearts who hadn’t finished a bachelor’s degree.

This arrangement suited everyone: He brought home the bacon, and she fried it while raising the kids and trying not to lose her mind.

But then came a revolution in pumps and pantyhose.

Women enrolled in college, graduated in droves, entered the workforce, and—strangely enough—still wanted to get married.

For a few decades, everything looked egalitarian.

Men and women began partnering with their educational equals. Sociologists called this trend educational homogamy, and everyone clapped.

Now the clapping has stopped.

Hypogamy: A Fancy Word for Women “Marrying Down”

Educational parity in marriage is on the decline, and a strange new species of relationship is rising: the hypogamous couple, where she has the degree(s), and he doesn’t.

According to sociologist Christine Schwartz at the University of Wisconsin, 62% of educationally mismatched heterosexual marriages in 2020 involved a woman marrying a man with less education (Schwartz, 2023).

Let’s pause and appreciate that this is a complete and utter reversal of the 20th-century pattern.

Among Americans born in 1930, only 2.3% of women with four-year degrees married men without them. Among those born in 1980? Nearly 10% (Goldman, 2024).

And this isn’t just an American anomaly.

Globally, women are marrying men who haven’t spent as much time memorizing outdated PowerPoint slides in lecture halls.

Sociologists are watching this unfold with the same energy ornithologists reserve for witnessing a penguin mate with a flamingo.

Are These Women Progressive Saints or Just Doing the Math?

The burning question in the ivory tower is whether these college-educated women are radically rewriting gender norms—or just adapting to a bleak dating market.

In 2021, there were 1.6 million more women than men enrolled in U.S. four-year colleges (Chambers, Goldman, & Winkelmann, 2023).

College-educated women still want to marry, but the pool of college-educated men is shrinking.

In other words, hypogamy may be less about changing preferences and more about statistical necessity. You can't date someone who's not there, no matter how progressive your Bumble profile is.

That said, preferences aren't fixed. Schwartz notes that people adapt quickly to the available dating pool. Love, it turns out, is not above a little pragmatic revision (Schwartz, 2023).

Can Masculinity Handle Hypogamy?

For generations, masculinity was propped up by two key achievements: earning more than your wife and never crying during sports movies.

But what happens when your wife has a PhD and your job requires a wrench, not a whiteboard?

Interestingly, even in hypogamous couples, men often still outearn their wives.

Education doesn’t always equal income.

The diesel mechanic with no degree often brings home more cash than the nonprofit administrator with two.

Goldman’s data show that the non-degreed men who “marry up” tend to be those already doing comparatively well economically (Goldman et al., 2024).

As one highly educated stay-at-home mom put it: “He will always be able to make more money than I ever could.” In other words, she went to college, but he built a company welding things—both impressive, but only one currently pays for diapers.

Social Awkwardness: The Hidden Cost of Hypogamy

When Allison Hiltz became a city council member in Colorado, people assumed her husband was a surgeon.

He was, in fact, a trash industry mechanic. “You could see people’s minds spin,” she said.

Eventually, the mismatch in cultural capital wore their marriage down. He didn’t feel at home in her world, and she outgrew his.

Stay-at-Home Dads Still Freak People Out

Take John Twomey in Austin, Texas.

His wife, Sonia, has a PhD and earns “her money” as a computational linguist.

After the birth of their son, John left his job in the auto industry to be a stay-at-home dad. Cue the existential meltdown of everyone around them.

At the park, he felt like a unicorn—or a kidnapper. “People probably think I stole a child,” he said. Meanwhile, his parents needed time to process the idea that their son, the former breadwinner, was now a full-time diaper concierge.

This might be one small family, but it reflects a broader unease with gender roles in flux.

Are Hypogamous Couples Happy?

Here’s the thing. We don’t fully know. And that’s what makes it fun for researchers.

Early studies suggested that hypogamous marriages were more likely to end in divorce (Esteve et al., 2012).

But recent data from the U.S. and Europe show that’s no longer true. It turns out people can and do adapt to new marital patterns—especially when society begins to normalize them (Steiber, 2023).

Still, the strain of inhabiting different worlds—one academic, the other blue-collar—can be real. Some couples embrace it. Others quietly fray at the edges.

The Bigger Picture: A Culture Learning to Bend

If there’s a moral here—and there always is, even if we don't like it—it’s that culture moves like a river: slow, winding, and constantly reshaping the landscape.

The new marriages of unequals may be awkward, unbalanced, and tinged with social weirdness.

But, nevertheless, they are also deeply human. People want love, family, security. They want a partner, not a résumé.

And it might be the case that we’re watching the beginning of a new phase in American gender relations, where women’s educational gains don’t have to be penalized in the marriage market and men don’t have to be ashamed to play backup singer to their wife’s solo.

Time will tell. We’re writing the next chapter of social evolution—with coffee-stained diplomas and toddlers in tow.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Chambers, C., Goldman, B., & Winkelmann, J. (2023). Marriage market mismatch: College-educated women and their shrinking dating pool. Harvard University Working Paper.

Esteve, A., Schwartz, C. R., Van Bavel, J., Permanyer, I., Klesment, M., & García-Román, J. (2012). The end of hypergamy: Global trends and implications. Population and Development Review, 38(3), 535–546. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2012.00515.x

Goldman, B. (2024). Personal communication on demographic trends in educational mismatch in marriage. Cornell University.

Schwartz, C. R. (2023). Educational assortative mating in the United States: Patterns and implications. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Sociology.

Steiber, N. (2023). Hypogamy and shifting gender norms in European marriage. University of Vienna, Department of Sociology.