Full article can be read here. The article basically says what I been saying in that women have less of a dating pool to date and marry from and that women are NOT dating down despite what various users here think is going.

They found that employability and marriageability are deeply intertwined.

I would think this be a no shit reply but its really the truth here that so many overlooked. Its really at the heart of why women don't date down. As women don't want to date a guy that isn't employable and able to make breadwinner money. Its really is that simple.

Dorn and his colleagues find that when towns and counties lose manufacturing jobs, fertility and marriage rates among young adults go down, too. Unmarried births and the share of children living in single-parent homes go up. Meanwhile, places with higher manufacturing employment have a bigger wage gap between men and women, and a higher marriage rate.

As the saying goes it's the economy stupid. More so this further disproves women dating down as men making less money aren't seen as being marriage material. Women don't want men who make less money than them. Nor do women really want men who take up female dominate jobs either as the article later on talks about. As a man being a caregiver or nurse isn't appealing least relationship material wise. Women may say "awww" but its the sort of "aww" you say when you see a cute puppy.

And remarkably, half of unemployed men in the U.S. are on some sort of painkiller.

Don't know how that is remarkable. Men are looking for an out/release to their lack of job. As they don't have any other place to turn to and its their escape from reality and how they cope.

"Traditional masculinity is standing in the way of working-class men's employment," Johns Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin said in an interview.

And eventually, she adds, gender norms "will adjust to the new realities" that are already present in the economy

Traditional masculinity is standing in the way, but so is society itself and that more so women. Women don't want to give up or let go of having traditional masculinity around as they benefit from it too much. And really gender norms will not adjust to the new realities least when nothing is being done about it. The new reality is women are going to marry less and that date less because less men are able to full fill the breadwinner role and such be marriage material. Women don't want to be or want to take on the breadwinner role they want men for that. More so they still want traditional masculine men and will punish men who aren't traditionally masculine.