The Higher the Ideals, the Farther from Marriage — The Harsh Reality Revealed by a 9,000-Person Longitudinal Study

【Genre】Society

日本語(original) | English version | 繁體中文（台灣）版 | Tiếng Việt

Hello everyone. This is Akira.

“I want to get married, but I can’t.”

This strange phenomenon is quietly spreading in Japan today.

According to the National Fertility Survey, about 80% of single men and women say they “want to get married eventually.”

Nevertheless, the lifetime unmarried rate continues to rise.

It’s not that they’ve given up on marriage.

The problem is actually the opposite.

They want to get married, but they can’t.

What lies behind this twisted situation?

The Paradox: “The Higher the Standards, the Harder It Is to Get Married”

A large-scale longitudinal study conducted by the University of Tokyo (tracking approximately 9,000 single men and women) analyzed the relationship between the conditions people seek in a marriage partner and their subsequent probability of getting married.

The results were quite harsh.

The more conditions people had, the more actively they used marriage events and matching apps to search for a partner.

Nevertheless, their probability of getting married by the following year was lower.

In other words, people with high ideals are not passive — they are actually trying hard.

Yet they still have difficulty getting married.

The simple fact behind this paradox is this:

The more conditions there are, the fewer people meet them.

Women Seek Income, Men Seek Appearance

Another fact revealed by the study is that men and women place importance on clearly different conditions.

Women tend to place more importance on “income” and “education” than men, with particularly strong emphasis on income.

On the other hand, men place more importance on “appearance” than women.

What is even more interesting is the difference in how these preferences change with age.

Women did not significantly change the conditions they sought in a partner as they grew older.

Men, however, tended to raise their conditions as their own income increased.

However, from their late 40s onward, men gradually relaxed their emphasis on appearance and adjusted their conditions more realistically.

The background to this difference lies in the persistent gender role division in Japanese society.

In a structure where the burden of housework and childcare tends to fall on women, marriage for women is not just about “romance” but is directly linked to “stability in life.”

Therefore, maintaining economic conditions is not a luxury for them, but rather a rational decision.

Having More Conditions and Moving Away from Marriage

What we should think about here is whether “having high ideals” itself is the problem.

What the research shows is not that having high ideals is bad in itself, but that “conditions tied to traditional gender roles” are becoming a barrier to marriage.

Women seek “income,” men seek “youth and appearance.”

These are remnants of values that have not been significantly updated since the Showa era.

The problem is that when each individual acts rationally, the conditions as a whole stop matching.

Having high ideals is not a bad thing.

However, when those ideals are tied to distortions in social structure, individual effort ironically works in the direction of moving away from marriage.

High ideals and moving away from marriage.

The social structure in which these two become linked is somehow unnatural.

What conditions are you unconsciously imposing on a partner (or on yourself) right now?

Are those conditions truly necessary?

Or are you simply bound by an old story of “how things should be”?

Continuing to hold this question may already be beginning to shake something.

Akira

👤 Profile: https://discipline.tokyo/profile.php

📧 akira@discipline.tokyo

📮 Anonymous Consultation Form: https://discipline.tokyo/contact.php

📚 All Activities Summary: https://discipline.tokyo/index.php

※ This series and related content are the crystallization of my thoughts and are protected by copyright law. Please clearly indicate the source when quoting. Unauthorized reproduction or commercial use is prohibited.