The Economics of Marriage in Australia.

Abstract

As applied economists and women, we find this topic sensational. The fact is the odds appear to be against you if you are a woman looking for the perfect man in Australia. Australia is in the grip of a ‘man drought’ where women increasingly outnumber men and a good bachelor is hard to find... and single women in their 30s are beginning to wonder where all the men have gone! (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005). The rumour of there being generally fewer men in the world is being pr oven to be true by Australian men. In 2007, Channel Nine news re ported that starting from the age of 30, the male population in Australia is incipiently becoming extinct! Isn’t this simply a disaster for all the women out there?