Is There Really a Man Shortage?

By Jennifer Pender-Brookes

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, eligible men are in short supply. In fact, when the stock-take of the nation took place in 2001, the census results showed that there were 93,000 more women than men aged 25 to 44 years. In fact, for almost every age over 25, there were more women than men.

So if the Bureau of Statistics can't find the single men, what chance do women have?

Plenty, according to Peter McDonald, professor of demography at ANU. He says it is more likely the ABS can't find the men precisely ‘because’ they are young and single. They are more likely to be out and about, busy at work or living a transient lifestyle, and therefore hard to pin down on census night.
 
In fact, the evidence points to the man shortage being largely a media-constructed myth. More boys than girls are born. And premature death does not account for the discrepancy. "Hardly anyone dies before age 50," says Professor McDonald.

As well as relying on census data, the bureau makes estimates of the population based on births, deaths and migration data. According to these estimates, which may be more reliable than the census, there should be 9000 more men than women aged 25-44 years old.

Take Sydney as an example, a city often cited for its man shortage. The census shows the following:
•    The number of ‘available’ men- those who are separated, divorced, widowed or never married - actually outnumbers ‘available’ women in most age groups.
•    In the 25-29 year old age group and in the 30-34 year old age group, available men outnumber available women, and in the 35-39 year old age group the numbers are finely balanced.
•    In every age group between 25 and 44 years old more women than men are married, or have tried marriage and are separated or divorced.
•    In the 35-39 year old age group, about 40,000 Sydney men - about one-quarter of them - have never tried marriage compared to about 28,000 women, or 18 per cent.

In theory this should mean the Sydney man shortage is a myth.

Professor McDonald has gone on record as saying the real problem is not a shortage of men but a shortage of "good" men, as single men at these ages tended to be poorly educated while single women tended to be highly educated. "There's not enough of the right kind of men," he said.

Yet there is an increasing consensus amongst professional, upwardly mobile and single men that it is available women that are in short supply. Take Matthew Beck, a research consultant and postgraduate student at the University of Sydney. He is good-looking, educated and single. And he is perplexed by the statistics, as are his equally educated single mates. In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald he asks, ‘where are the available women? And what do they want?’

Perhaps Matthew and his single mates- who are out and about working, studying and searching for available women- are representative of the men the census overlooked.
 
 
 

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