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Comment by pzo | Hacker News Reader

I'm just always wondering why the ratio is not more close 50% / 50% between males and woman?

On birth male/female ratio is pretty much 50/50. So at any stage (except older >70 because woman usually lives longer) ratio should be similar. LGBT are just 10% of population and distribution between gays/lesbians seems also 50/50.

Based on that if there is a single male there is another single female somewhere. The only reason that comes to my mind that more female migrated from Finland somewhere else or there is a big immigration of males into Finland.

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There could be various other reasons as well. For instance, males tend to be older in a family than females, so the 35-year cut-off may be too early to consider. Additionally, there is the desirability factor, where the most successful or desirable males may have multiple 'families,' or at least children from multiple women

Yes, here married men are about 3.5 years older on average than their wives, and average age of mothers has been rising. So, a significant percentage of those men will become fathers after 35, reducing the gap between genders. I think you're right about the second point as well. 87% of single parents in Finland are women, and it's probably easier for the men to remarry and have more children at that point.

Nevertheless, it's also notable that the majority of long-term unemployed are men by a significant margin. Average educational outcomes of women are better than for men these days. There's a much higher incidence of young men than young women dropping out of education and work. These men are statistically much less likely to have children than others.

For a woman (with a working utero) to have a baby, all that is needed is ONE man willing to have unprotected sex with her. Those are not hard to find, especially if she's willing to lie about whether she's on the pill.

A man will generally only become a father if he finds a woman that WANTS to have children with him. If he's unattractive, chances are she will select someone else. Many women will prefer even married men over an unattractive, low status one.

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