Money can’t buy women love
Conn Carroll
The Beatles may have topped the charts in six countries in 1964 with the hit song “Can’t Buy Me Love,” but as romantic as the sentiment might be, the scientific evidence shows that money often can buy someone love … as long as the person is a man.
In a 2021 paper published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, University of North Carolina sociology professor Rosemary Hopcroft looked at Census Bureau data from 2014 that compared the income levels of men and women and their likelihood of being married or divorced and how likely they were to have children and how many children.
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What Hopcroft found was that, at least for men, the more money a man had, the more likely he was to be married. Men at the bottom of the income scale had less than a 40% chance of ever being married. Men at the top of the income scale were almost guaranteed (100%) to be married at least once in their lifetimes.
The opposite was true of women, although the difference was not as stark. For women at the lowest end of the income scale, almost 80% of them had ever been married. But for women at the top of the income scale, just under 70% had ever been married.
For divorce, more money meant less divorce for men and women, but there was a huge difference between rich and poor women. While wealthy women were only slightly less likely to divorce than poor women, poor men were much more likely to divorce than rich men.
If money doesn’t buy men love, it at least keeps women in their lives … and children. Unsurprisingly, higher male incomes also track with higher chances of having children. The more money a man makes, the more likely he is to have children and the more children he is likely to have.
For women, the opposite is true. The more money they make, the less likely they are to have children and the fewer children they are likely to have.
This year, Hopcroft ran the data again, using 2021 data instead of 2014 data, and her results were the same. Given more resources, men are more likely to start and maintain a family, while for women, the opposite is true.
Does this mean that men value family more than women?
Not at all.
What these results reveal are the different qualities men and women are looking for in a mate. Men want a woman who is loving, kind, and physically attractive. They generally do not care how wealthy she is or how much money she makes.
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But women generally do value how much money a man makes. The higher a man’s income is, the more desirable he is to more women and the more likely he is to be married and have children.
Years after the song was written, Paul McCartney was pressed on what the real meaning of his hit 1964 song was. “It should have been ‘Can Buy Me Love,’” McCartney reflected, thinking back on all the romantic opportunities his fame and wealth had brought him at the time.