外媒关注：越来越多高学历女性“下嫁”？背后原因令人深思…

在当今社会，越来越多女性走进高校，拿下学位，投身职场，成为各自领域中的佼佼者。然而，随着学历和地位的提升，她们在情感关系中却面临一个新困扰：找对象变难了，特别是想找一个“门当户对”的另一半。

你会介意伴侣学历比你低吗？这是许多高学历女性正在面对的现实难题。

近期，多家外媒媒体关注了“女性下嫁”现象的上升趋势——即越来越多女性在婚恋中选择学历、收入、社会地位不如自己的男性伴侣。

为什么会出现这样的变化？女性真的更难“往上找”了吗？而这，又对当代年轻人的恋爱、婚姻甚至生育意愿带来了什么影响？

More and more women are "marrying down" when it comes to education, said The Atlantic . Marriages had been moving in a "more egalitarian direction" since the mid-20th century, when more women began attending university and entering the job market.

《大西洋月刊》指出，越来越多女性在婚姻中出现“学历向下兼容”的趋势。自20世纪中叶以来，随着女性逐渐走入大学课堂和职场，婚姻模式曾一度朝着“更加平等”的方向发展。

But now the trend of women "partnering up with their educational equals" seems to be reversing, with a growing number practicing "hypogamy" – wedding someone of a lower social class or education level.

然而，如今女性与学历相当伴侣结婚的趋势正在发生逆转，越来越多女性开始“低嫁”——也就是与社会阶层或教育水平较低的对象结婚。

Too picky？

太挑剔了？

Women now outnumber men in higher education in almost all developed countries. In the UK, more women were accepted into university than men for the first time in 1996, and that gap has only grown; in 2024, female students outnumbered male students by 28%, according to government figures.

在几乎所有发达国家中，女性在高等教育中的比例都已超过男性。以英国为例，早在1996年，进入大学的女性人数首次超过男性；而到了2024年，政府数据显示，这一差距进一步扩大，女大学生人数比男生多出28%。

A 2023 study from the US-based Institute for Family Studies found 45% of single women with a degree said their relationship status was due to an "inability to find someone who met their expectations", said the paper.

据报道，美国“家庭研究协会”在2023年发布的一项研究发现，45%拥有学位的单身女性表示，自己单身的原因是“找不到符合预期的伴侣”。

Romantic

浪漫悲观主义

Women's academic success, coupled with the "malebreadwinner norm" that remains a lingering "cultural anchor", gives the "shrinking pool ofmore successful men tremendous power", said Sarah Bernstein in The New York Times. Social media is "rife with male fantasies", including "beautiful, submissive tradwives" embracing traditional gender roles.

《纽约时报》记者莎拉·伯恩斯坦、指出，女性在学术上的成功，加上“男性养家”这一仍未消散的“文化锚点”，使得“那一小撮更成功的男性掌握了巨大的择偶权力”。社交媒体上充斥着男性幻想，比如那些“美丽、顺从、回归传统角色的主妇式女性”。

But while a small group of rich, successful men are "reaping the benefits", others find themselves struggling to compete in the dating market. "Enter themanosphere", a space filled with "romantic pessimism" and the idea that "modern women are not to be trusted".

而当少数富有成功的男性正在享受红利时，更多男性却发现自己在约会市场上处于劣势。于是，所谓的“男性圈”应运而生——这是一个充满“浪漫悲观主义”的空间，里面充斥着“现代女性不值得信任”的观点。

And women themselves are feeling "similarlydespondent" about dating. In fact, according to a study by the Survey Center on American Life, 41% of single people in 2023 had "no interest in dating at all".

而女性在约会方面也同样感到“情绪低落”。根据“美国生活调查中心”的一项研究，2023年有41%的单身人士表示他们“对约会完全没有兴趣”。

It's "too soon" to know whether this "gulf in attitudes" among young people today will negatively impact the already "tumbling birth rates", said The Economist. But "early signs are discouraging". Policymakers must tackle the "underlying problems that are driving young men and women apart", starting with figuring out how to make education work for underperforming boys at school.

《经济学人》指出，现在判断这种“年轻人之间在观念上的巨大分歧”是否会进一步影响本已“持续下滑的出生率”还“为时过早”。但“初步迹象并不乐观”。政策制定者必须正视“正在导致年轻男性与女性渐行渐远的深层问题”，其中一个关键起点是：如何帮助在学校表现不佳的男孩提升教育水平。

It's not all bad, though. There is some evidence that beliefs are "evolving", said The Atlantic. Christine Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin, analysed data from the World Values Survey and found that in the countries where hypogamy is more prevalent, people were less likely to agree with the statement "if a woman earns more money than her husband, it's almost certain to cause problems".

不过，事情也并非全是负面的。《大西洋月刊》指出，有迹象表明人们的观念正在“逐渐演变”。威斯康星大学社会学教授克里斯汀·施瓦茨分析了“世界价值观调查”的数据，发现那些“女性下嫁”现象更普遍的国家，人们更不认同“如果女性收入高于丈夫，几乎一定会产生问题”这种说法。

And while hypogamous marriages used to be more likely than others to end in divorce, recent analyses of marriages in Europe and the US suggests this is "no longer the case". These trends don't necessarily prove a major shift is under way. "But they might offer a reason to becautiously optimisticabout society's ability to adjust to new realities."

此外，过去“下嫁”婚姻比其他婚姻更容易离婚，但最近对欧美婚姻的研究显示，“这种情况已经不再成立”。这些趋势不一定意味着社会正在经历一场剧烈的转变，“但它们至少提供了一点谨慎乐观的理由”，说明社会或许有能力逐步适应这些新的现实。

词•汇•解•析

marry down：指在婚姻中配偶的教育或社会地位低于自己

hypogamy：一个更正式的术语，意为“下嫁”，即女性嫁给社会阶层或教育程度较低的男性

romantic pessimism：对恋爱和亲密关系持悲观看法，常出现在关于“约会难”“婚恋焦虑”的语境中

breadwinner norm：指“养家糊口者的角色”，传统上由男性担任。

a shrinking pool of…“越来越少的……”，常用于人口、人才、资源等场景

manosphere：男性圈（以男性权利为导向的博客和网站）

despondent：沮丧的

tumbling birth rates：快速下滑的出生率，tumble本意是“翻滚、跌倒”，在这里用作动词的现在分词，表示 "迅速下降、暴跌"

cautiously optimistic：谨慎乐观的，表达在看好某事的同时仍保留一定的怀疑或保守态度，是媒体报道和正式写作中常见表达

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