An Iconic Report 20 Years Later: Many of Those Women
Twenty years ago, unmarried, college-educated women over age 30 got some bad news, and America took great pity on them.
The impetus was a Newsweek cover story in June 1986 titled "Too Late for Prince Charming?" It showcased a study by Yale and Harvard researchers suggesting that 30-year-old white, college-educated single women had only a 20% chance of finding husbands. At age 40, the probability fell to 2.6%. Using hyperbole and humor that became infamous then, and sound far more awful today, Newsweek said those 40-year-olds were "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than land a mate.
A June 1986 article suggested educated women over 30 had a slim chance of marrying.
A lot of us recall the hand wringing over that study, the countless articles and TV debates, the tearful conversations between single women and their mothers. The statistics were later challenged by U.S. Census Bureau demographer Jeanne Moorman, who calculated that those 30-year-olds actually had a 58% to 66% likelihood of finding a husband; for 40-year-olds it was 17% to 23%. But the Harvard-Yale study's core message -- that educated, career-focused women risk spending their lives alone -- still reverberates today.
Well, it turns out that less than 10% of college-educated women now ages 50 to 60 have never been married, census records show. And I did something far less scientific: I checked in with 10 women who in 1986 appeared in Newsweek and other media reports about the study. Eight of them had found a husband. Two others were single by choice.
Meanwhile, new research suggests that women today who are highly educated are actually more likely to find husbands. For a study released last month, Elaina Rose, a University of Washington economics professor, crunched three decades of census data. She found that in 1980, women ages 40 to 44 with professional degrees or doctorates were 25% less likely to be married than women in that age group with just high-school diplomas. By 2000, women ages 40 to 44 with postcollege education levels were slightly more apt to be married than women who finished only high school.
Given that 57% of today's college students are female, the study is reassuring. "It shows that getting an education is no longer an impediment to marriage," says Prof. Rose.
Christine Stroebel-Scimeca is a financial planner in Mequon, Wis. In 1986, at age 30, she appeared in Newsweek, telling of a date she had with a man who taunted her about her biological clock.
In the years that followed, she was sometimes panicky about her marital status. But at 38, tired of dating "superficial professionals," she found the courage to approach the friendly, handsome man who ran the local butcher shop. She invited him to a small dinner party at her house. Though he had no college degree, he arrived with flowers and an open heart. They were married two years later. Ms. Stroebel-Scimeca never had children of her own but helped raise two stepsons.
Hazel Weiser, who was 37 and single in 1986, recalls using humor to shake off the Harvard-Yale study. When it was released, she happened to be visiting her parents, and both her mother and father, separately, slipped the news under her bedroom door. She was more amused than distraught, and found herself advising single friends to see the bright side: "We can forget about aerobics lessons and start eating as many Dove bars as we want."
Ms. Weiser married in 1987. Now an executive at the Long Island Community Foundation, she says she is impressed by the self-confidence of many young, educated women today, including her Wellesley College-bound 17-year-old daughter. "They were not raised with the same negative voices that women of my generation had to overcome," she says. Her advice for them: "Don't pay attention to things in our culture that attempt to make women feel insecure."
In 1986, insecurity was rampant. In fact, many women found the Harvard-Yale study "perversely reassuring," because it suggested that societal issues (rather than their own inadequacies) were behind their struggles to find men, says Gail Prince, a Chicago dating coach. In the Newsweek piece, Ms. Prince advised women to "carry conversation openers, like a feather boa or a copy of Sports Illustrated." Such ploys would feel hokey today, she admits, but are a reminder of the urgency with which people back then were seeking direction.
Neil Bennett, co-author of the Harvard-Yale study, now says the media coverage of it was oversimplified, and didn't take into account that some women chose not to marry. He says a lot of the study's less-publicized findings proved prophetic, especially the trend of black women having an even tougher time finding husbands.
Cheryl Lavin was 40 and single in 1986, writing "Tales from the Front," a syndicated newspaper column for singles. The Harvard-Yale study was depressing, she says, "but my thought was, 'I'm not a statistic. I'm one woman. I need to find one man.' " She met her future husband the very month she appeared in Newsweek. Now 60, still married and writing the column, Ms. Lavin says women today have more opportunities to meet men, thanks to the Internet.
Diane Croce, however, knows firsthand that technology has limitations as a matchmaker. She was 39 when she appeared in Newsweek. She related how she was rejected by men at a video dating service. Now 59 and still single, she recently filled out a compatibility test for an online dating service and was told there were no matches for her.
"I'm in the same place I was then," she says. But in between, she lived with a man for nine years, survived breast cancer, and realized she really didn't want to marry or have kids. She explains that she's happy with her life now, thank you, but she's open to the idea that the right man still might come along. "Sweetie," she says, "there's always hope."
大龄女性：理想伴侣难寻觅？
二十年前，受过大学教育、年龄在30岁以上的美国未婚女性听到了一条坏消息，这消息让全国上下都对她们报以极大同情。
让她们大受刺激的是《新闻周刊》(Newsweek) 1986年6月号的封面报导，题目是《大龄女性：理想伴侣难寻觅？》(Too Late for Prince Charming?)。报导称，耶鲁大学和哈佛大学的研究人员发现，30岁以上、有大学背景的白人单身女性找到如意郎君的概率只有20%，40岁以上的概率更是只有2.6%。报导用后来变得很不受欢迎的夸张和揶揄的口吻、今天听来更是让人恐惧的腔调说，那些40多岁的女性被恐怖份子杀害的概率也比她们找到伴侣的可能性大。
我们中有许多人还记得这一研究结果是如何让她们唏嘘和无奈，还有围绕这则报导的数不清的文章和电视讨论，以及单身女性和她们的母亲之间催人泪下的交谈。不过，美国国家统计局人口统计学家珍妮?摩尔曼(Jeanne Moorman)后来对这个结果提出了异议，并公布了她的统计结果：女性30岁以后组建家庭的概率是58%-66%，40岁以后的是17%-23%。尽管这个数字听上去令人欣慰不少，但哈佛-耶鲁研究项目的主要结论──受过良好教育、关注个人职业发展的女性不得不独自生活的可能性很大──今天听来仍能引起强烈共鸣。
不过，据调查显示，今天的状况是现在年龄在50-60岁之间的高学历女性中从未有过婚姻的比例还不到10%。我还做了一个也许不那么科学的研究：我调查了1986年曾在《新闻周刊》的报导或其他媒体有关这个话题的相关报导中出现过的10位女性，她们当中有8个人后来成了家，另外两人出于个人选择一直单身。
与此同时，新的研究结果显示，今天，越是学历高的女性找到配偶的比例越高。华盛顿大学经济学教授埃莱娜?罗斯(Elaina Rose)对过去三十多年来的数据进行了统计分析。结果她发现，1980年时，年龄在40-44岁之间的有专业学位甚至博士学位的女性找到伴侣的概率比同一年龄段但只有高中学历的女性低25%。而到2000年，前一个调查样本组的概率已略高于后一组。
罗斯教授说，考虑到现在57%的大学生是女性，这个研究结论就更让人欣慰了。它表明，教育背景已不再是婚姻的障碍。
克莉丝汀?斯多波尔-西梅卡(Christine Stroebel-Scimeca)是威斯康星州梅奎恩的一名理财师。1986年，30岁的她曾在《新闻周刊》的报导里讲述过她与一名男子约会的事。这名男子曾对她作为一个女人既想维持职业发展、又想充分享受婚姻生活的想法很不以为然，认为这不符合自然规律。
在随后的那些年，有时她会对自己的婚姻状况感到非常恐惧。38岁那年，她对跟那些“肤浅的专业人士”约会感到厌倦，于是鼓起勇气见了一位英俊而和善的肉铺老板。她请他到家里参加一个小型晚餐聚会。虽然他没有大学学位，但他来的时候带著鲜花，在聚会上表现得也很坦诚。两年后他们结婚了。斯多波尔-西梅卡自己一直没要孩子，他们一直抚养著她丈夫和前妻生的两个儿子。
海泽尔?威瑟(Hazel Weiser)还记得哈佛-耶鲁的研究结果发表时她和朋友是怎样一笑了之的。1986年时她37岁，还是单身。报导公布那个结果时她正在探望父母。父亲和母亲分别将登著消息的报纸塞到她房间的门缝里。但她自己对此并不感到沮丧，反而觉得很好玩。她建议她的单身朋友们要多看看事情光明的一面：（既然婚姻无望，）我们大可以忘掉什么有氧健身课，而且也不用怕巧克力了，想吃多少就吃多少。
不过威瑟第二年就结婚了。现在她在Long Island Community Foundation任职。她说，对今天的许多受过教育的女性（包括她那即将跨进著名的威斯利大学的女儿）表现出的自信她非常钦佩。她说，她们在成长过程中没有受到我们那个时代的人要克服的负面的教化。她建议说，不要在意美国文化里那些会让女性感到自己不安全的东西。
但在1986年的时候，不安全感还非常盛行，许多女性认为哈佛-耶鲁的研究结果极有说服力，芝加哥婚介顾问盖尔?普林斯(Gail Prince)说，这是因为研究表明，她们难以找到伴侣的原因不是她们自己存在不足，而是社会问题使然。普林斯在《新闻周刊》那篇文章中建议女士们带些有助于打开话题的东西，比如一条毛皮领子或一本《体育画报》什么的。她承认这些小伎俩今天看来可能显得很做作，但从它也能看出那个时候人们是如何急于在大龄人士婚姻问题上找到出路。
哈佛-耶鲁研究报告的联合撰稿人之一内尔?贝内特(Neil Bennett)最近表示，当年媒体的报导过于简单化了，而且没有考虑到有些女性是主动选择不结婚的。他说，他们的研究中有一些很少公开的结论后来看来还是很有预见性的，比如，黑人女性总体上更难找到伴侣等等。
谢丽尔?莱文(Cheryl Lavin) 1986年时是一位40岁的单身人士，她的工作是为报纸上的单身话题专栏《一线故事》(Tales from the Front)撰稿。她说，哈佛-耶鲁的研究结论很让人沮丧，但我的想法是，我又不是统计学家，我只是一个个体，我要找一个伴侣。就在她的名字出现在《新闻周刊》的那个月，她就遇到了她后来的丈夫。莱文现在六十岁了，仍保持著婚姻关系，并且还在写专栏。她说，因为有互联网，现在的女性遇到理想男子的机会更多了。
不过，黛安?克罗斯(Diane Croce)从她的亲身经历感受到，技术在帮助人们结识配偶时还是有它的局限性。研究报告在《新闻周刊》发表时她39岁。她还记得在视频约会时她是如何被对方拒绝的。克罗斯现在59岁，仍单身一人。最近她在一家网上约会服务机构做了一次适配测试，结果她被告知没有适合她的对象。
她说，现在跟二十年前一样。在这二十年间，她曾跟一个男人一起生活了9年、患过乳腺癌，后来她意识到自己并不想结婚或者生孩子。她说，她对现在的生活感到挺满意的，不过，如果仍能有合适的男子一起生活，她也不反对。她对我说，亲爱的，希望总是有的。
