This is interesting. The numbers here are not surprising based on my independent observations, but the phenomenon is in some sense fairly surprising. Several other considerations:
1. Anecdotally, conditional upon marriage, the rate of divorce in my EA friends seem much higher than among my non-EA friends of similar ages. So it is only not the case that EAs are careful/slow to marry because they are less willing to make long-term commitments that they cannot always keep, or because they are more okay with pre-marital cohabitation.
Obviously in any given case this should not be a cause of blame (in all the situations I have sufficient detail about, it appears that divorce was the best option in each of those cases). However, collectively the pattern should require some explanation.
2. Along with some of the other commenters, I share the anecdotes that my EA friends are much less likely to be married than my non-EA friends, or other groups. To add to the list of anecdotes, among Googlers who a) I know from non-EA contexts, eg former coworkers, b) are older than me and c) I know well enough to be >80% of confident of their relationship statuses, I think > 50% of them are married. I think the numbers are closer to 25-30% for Googlers of a similar age range I know through EA (with some nuances, like I know one person who probably would have been married if not for polyamory), and similar (if not slightly lower) numbers for non-Googler EAs I know well.
3. My inside view is that if you don’t update on the observed data and just consider which characteristics will make EAs more or less likely to be married, I think there are a bunch of factors that push EAs towards “more”as opposed to less. Possibly controversial, but consider:
A. EAs are, on average, disproportionately high in traits that are seen as positive for long-term relationships/marriages in the broader population. This includes obvious traits like elite college attendance (speaking as someone who has not attended one), high earning potential, and intellectual engagement, but also subtler traits like having good relationships with their parents (which should be an indicator for being on average better at long-term relationships), general willingness to make sacrifices, communication ability, and willingness to try different things for conflict resolution.
B. You might expect this to be a signaling problem (maybe EAs have positive traits that are hard for others to discover), but I think the meta-level evidence is against this? For example, elite college backgrounds and intellectual ability are relatively transparent. You might also expect EAs to on average be healthier and more conventionally attractive than baseline (For example, Americans aged 20-39 are ~40% likely to be obese for both men and women, and I think the numbers are much lower in EA).
C. EAs are much more likely to be in international relationships than baseline, and the relative legal benefits of marriage are usually higher for international marriages than domestic marriages.
1. Anecdotally, conditional upon marriage, the rate of divorce in my EA friends seem much higher than among my non-EA friends of similar ages. So it is not the case that EAs are careful/slow to marry because they are less willing with making long-term commitments, or because they are more okay with pre-marital cohabitation.
I’m not sure I understand why the observation in the first sentence supports the claims in the second sentence? Couldn’t EAs tend to be less willing to make long-term commitments, or be more ok with pre-marital cohabitation, but then there’s also some other factor (e.g., not feeling bound by conventions, regularly changing lifestyles such as by moving, disagreeablenss) meaning that if EAs get married they’re more likely to get divorced? Or couldn’t be that EAs tend to have those two features, but the EAs who get married are ones who deviate from those tendencies?
My inside view is that if you don’t update on the observed data and just consider which characteristics will make EAs more or less likely to be married, I think there are a bunch of factors that push EAs towards “more”as opposed to less.
This is interesting. The numbers here are not surprising based on my independent observations, but the phenomenon is in some sense fairly surprising. Several other considerations:
1. Anecdotally, conditional upon marriage, the rate of divorce in my EA friends seem much higher than among my non-EA friends of similar ages. So it is only not the case that EAs are careful/slow to marry because they are less willing to make long-term commitments that they cannot always keep, or because they are more okay with pre-marital cohabitation.
Obviously in any given case this should not be a cause of blame (in all the situations I have sufficient detail about, it appears that divorce was the best option in each of those cases). However, collectively the pattern should require some explanation.
2. Along with some of the other commenters, I share the anecdotes that my EA friends are much less likely to be married than my non-EA friends, or other groups. To add to the list of anecdotes, among Googlers who a) I know from non-EA contexts, eg former coworkers, b) are older than me and c) I know well enough to be >80% of confident of their relationship statuses, I think > 50% of them are married. I think the numbers are closer to 25-30% for Googlers of a similar age range I know through EA (with some nuances, like I know one person who probably would have been married if not for polyamory), and similar (if not slightly lower) numbers for non-Googler EAs I know well.
3. My inside view is that if you don’t update on the observed data and just consider which characteristics will make EAs more or less likely to be married, I think there are a bunch of factors that push EAs towards “more”as opposed to less. Possibly controversial, but consider:
A. EAs are, on average, disproportionately high in traits that are seen as positive for long-term relationships/marriages in the broader population. This includes obvious traits like elite college attendance (speaking as someone who has not attended one), high earning potential, and intellectual engagement, but also subtler traits like having good relationships with their parents (which should be an indicator for being on average better at long-term relationships), general willingness to make sacrifices, communication ability, and willingness to try different things for conflict resolution.
B. You might expect this to be a signaling problem (maybe EAs have positive traits that are hard for others to discover), but I think the meta-level evidence is against this? For example, elite college backgrounds and intellectual ability are relatively transparent. You might also expect EAs to on average be healthier and more conventionally attractive than baseline (For example, Americans aged 20-39 are ~40% likely to be obese for both men and women, and I think the numbers are much lower in EA).
C. EAs are much more likely to be in international relationships than baseline, and the relative legal benefits of marriage are usually higher for international marriages than domestic marriages.
I’m not sure I understand why the observation in the first sentence supports the claims in the second sentence? Couldn’t EAs tend to be less willing to make long-term commitments, or be more ok with pre-marital cohabitation, but then there’s also some other factor (e.g., not feeling bound by conventions, regularly changing lifestyles such as by moving, disagreeablenss) meaning that if EAs get married they’re more likely to get divorced? Or couldn’t be that EAs tend to have those two features, but the EAs who get married are ones who deviate from those tendencies?
This seems true to me as well.
I think this was poorly phrased on my part. I meant to say “it is not only the case.” I will edit the parent comment.