Hrm… interesting. Reading that, however, doesn’t seem to imply that a small imbalance in the sex ratio necessarily makes anything more than a small difference. Did I miss it, or is there something in the original actual paper that implies small imbalances produce large effects? (My investigation into this topic is practically nonexistent, however.)
(I am curious also about the wording… Sexually active males vs sexually receptive females.)
If you look at the study (warning: PDF) you can get quantified information. Looking at page 5 you can see that a woman in .925 city (like Philadelphia) will get married a year earlier than in a 1.075 city (like Portland). So maybe the effect isn’t that big after all.
Although I would expect the results would be more dramatic if we comparing the operational sex ratios of countries rather than cities. If the sexual market is unfavorable, it’s a lot easier to import a mate from another city than another country.
Hrm… interesting. Reading that, however, doesn’t seem to imply that a small imbalance in the sex ratio necessarily makes anything more than a small difference. Did I miss it, or is there something in the original actual paper that implies small imbalances produce large effects? (My investigation into this topic is practically nonexistent, however.)
(I am curious also about the wording… Sexually active males vs sexually receptive females.)
If you look at the study (warning: PDF) you can get quantified information. Looking at page 5 you can see that a woman in .925 city (like Philadelphia) will get married a year earlier than in a 1.075 city (like Portland). So maybe the effect isn’t that big after all.
Although I would expect the results would be more dramatic if we comparing the operational sex ratios of countries rather than cities. If the sexual market is unfavorable, it’s a lot easier to import a mate from another city than another country.
Hrm… So the question is does data at the scale of countries (or at least larger regions within countries) exist for this?
Anyways, thanks. I may have to update a bit on this matter (conditional on poly actually being likely to cause imbalance.)