What Is the Ideal Sex Ratio?

As I have noted previously, men will eventually go the way of the dildo...er...dodo as a result of the Y-chromosome deteriorating with each generation of men.  According to Dr. William Sykes, this will happen in 125,000 years or so, while some others put the timeframe as little as 3000 years or as much as 5 million years.  So the sex ratio (i.e. the number of males per 100 females) will eventually drop to zero, but that will take thousands of years.  So in the meantime, what does the research on natural experiments of the effects of varying the sex ratio actually show?   Here, we humorously explore two scenarios, "Surf City" (i.e. "two girls for every boy"), versus "Land of Confusion" (i.e. "too many men, too many people, making too many problems").

First, we examine Surf City, with a low sex ratio (more females than males).  Here, we see that, all else being equal, Women have more structural power than men due to strength in numbers, while at the same time they have less dyadic power (i.e. individual bargaining power) in the dating market due to supply and demand given the shortage of males.  This of course tends to lead to men being at least somewhat more likely to "play the field" than to seek committed and monogamous relationships, and thus casual sex tends to increase as a result as the relative "cost" of sex decreases for men and the social acceptability of such activity increases for Women.  In fact, some authors have even blamed the relative excess of Women on college campuses for driving the so-called "hook-up culture", though this idea remains controversial to this day.  Whether or not this is a good thing or bad thing really depends on what you are personally into in that regard.  The scarcity of men does create a sort of "musical chairs" for Women looking for a mate, which is the flip side of men having an easier time finding one.  But one cannot argue with the benefits of strength in numbers in terms of strucutral power, or the fact that Women are really leaving men in the dust in terms of educational attainment.  Regardless, Surf City is in every possible way the kind of place that would make the notorious anti-feminist campaigner Phyllis Schlafly (on whom Serena Joy in The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is partly based) spin in her grave.

So how about "Land of Confusion", with a high sex ratio (more males than females)?  Or should I say, "Land of Confucius", given that China's (only recently-ended) one-child policy has unfortunately led to exactly that result due to female infanticide and sex-selective abortion.  India has a similar problem as well.  On the surface, if you believe the Date-onomics theory, this should be beneficial for Women--even if they lose structural power, they undoubtedly gain bargaining power in the dating market due to supply and demand, right?  Indeed, an excess of males does tend to lead to less casual sex and more committed monogamous relationships for precisely that reason.  Men are more likely to settle down sooner than later as a result, since they don't want to be the "odd man out" in the game of musical chairs, and it would appear that they would treat Women better since they fear losing them.  Marriage and (nuclear) family formation are thus more likely and more stable.  Even for Women who don't want to settle down yet, there is a seemingly endless array of men to choose from if they want to "play the field" themselves.  Sounds like a virtual utopia for Women at first until....

Until you see men's dark side, that is, which they simply tend to be better at hiding (at first) when Women are in short supply.  But it is still there nonetheless, and merely having a more difficult time finding a partner does not in itself make men more virtuous. (Markets are amoral, after all.)  On the contrary, at least some studies show that an excess of males is statistically associated with increases in crime, violence, social unrest, gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, rape, bride abduction, prostitution, and human trafficking.  And while not all studies agree, this does seem to make sense. And while men may seem to be more protective of Women when they are scarce, that is a double-edged sword, since that very same scarcity also leads men to become more jealous and controlling as well, leading to the "gilded cage" phenomenon.  Patriarchy is a protection racket, after all, and Women (and children) rarely if ever seem to get any of the benefits of so-called "traditionalism" for free.  And let's not forget that the ancient Romans also had an excess of males as well, as did the Greeks (except for Sparta) as well as the American Wild West--need I say more?

In fact, one can even argue that the social problems that result from a scarcity of Women are the reason why most societies, even highly patriarchal ones, eventually decided to abolish polygamy.  On the surface, that doesn't make sense, since the alpha males in charge benefit from having many wives.  But one-sided polygyny creates an "artificial scarcity" of Women, since the wealthiest and most powerful men hoard a disproportionate share of the Women for themselves, with the rest of the men competing fiercely for a shrinking pool of Women, and many omega males left in the lurch.  That creates the aformentioned social problems (crime, violence, etc.), which led the patriarchs in charge to replace it with monogamous marriage--or more accurately, a one-sided open marriage for men in many cases since historically only Women were expected to be faithful in practice.

Even if one were to argue that Surf City has a downside, it really pales in comparison with that of the Land of Confusion.  And even then, the downside can be reduced simply by jettisoning the idea of compulsory heterosexuality.  Since we know that Women tend to have a more fluid sexuality than men, many can indeed go lezzie or at least bisexual as a result.  We see this in the "college lesbian" phenomenon, which is apparently more common than the "When in Rome" phenomenon for men.  Not only would this solve the musical chairs problem, but men would now have serious competition--and now be expected to be able to pleasure Women as well as Women can pleasure each other.  And interestingly, men don't really seem to get particularly jealous in that regard, in fact they are more likely to get zealous instead.

In other words, Surf City has more Eros and less Thanatos (more sex and less violence), while Land of Confusion has more Thanatos and less Eros (more violence and less sex).  The trade-off between sex and violence should not come as much of a shock, given how in men, both are driven by testosterone.  And while men's demand for sex is relatively inelastic, Women's demand for sex is far more elastic. True, men have a dark side regardless, but when they have less incentive to hide it, as in Surf City, they tend to show it to Women early on, so at least you kinda know where you stand.   And Women have more incentive to better themselves via educational and economic empowerment in Surf City as well, so as to be less dependent on men.  Thus, on balance, I would argue that Surf City is better for both Women as well as men.  This is true even in a patriarchal society, and I believe would be even more true in a Matriarchal society.