The Cost of Too Many Men

Research published this month indicates that a shortage of women can convince men to spend and borrow more money in a bid to outcompete one another. A team of researchers led by Professor Vladas Griskevicius, from the Department of Marketing at the University of Minnesota, predicted that the perceived sex ratio (amount of available men per available woman) within a community influences the economic decisions that men make.

Reviewing a wealth of data from 134 US cities, the researchers found strong support for their predictions. They exemplified their theory by highlighting the case of two cities located less than 100 miles apart in the US state of Georgia, Macon and Columbus. Despite sharing a very similar historical and economic background, the average consumer debt of those living in Columbus was $3,479 higher than an individual living in Macon. It was observed that in Columbus there are 1.18 single men to every woman, and in Macon there are only 0.78 single men to every woman.

Furthermore, the team devised experiments whereby participants read local news articles that described their immediate community as containing either more men or more women. These participants were given a monthly paycheck from which they asked how much they’d save versus how much they’d borrow, using credit cards for immediate expenditures. The men who believed themselves to be in a more male-biased community cut their monthly savings by 42% while their borrowing increased by 84%.

With the findings comes the question of whether these men are aware of how many ‘competitors’ they have, and are deliberately acting more frivolously to outshine potential rivals. “In none of the experiments did the men know the true reasons for their behavior,” Griskevicius explains, “some of our behaviors are much more reflexive and subconscious. We see that there are more men than women in our environment and it automatically changes our desires, our behaviors, and our entire psychology.”

Given the current economic climate, how might we learn from this research? Could there be any take home messages here for the male dominated banking world, whose reckless short-term lending contributed to our financial downfall? “Yes, the studies in the paper do suggest that having more males in the workplace will lead to more impulsive and perhaps risky decisions,” Griskevicius asserts. “One implication is that employers might be more strategic about hiring decisions or more strategic about where they locate specific people in the office relative to the gender ratios of their immediate peer group.”

This is by no means the full story. Looking east to China, a country which, compared to the US and the UK, currently has a stable economy, we find that there are 1.18 men for every women. In his paper, Griskevicius acknowledges that differences in mating strategy are important when comparing different cultures: “American men may be more likely to respond to male-biased sex ratios by wanting to spend money because, on average, they are more oriented toward a short-term mating strategy.”