A new survey suggests that marriage is actually more important to men than it is to women. In fact, just since last year, the number of women who say their definition of success is not linked to marriage (or relationships at all) has nearly doubled.
According to the third “Professional Women Report” (h/t the Atlantic), a survey of over 1,000 male and female professionals released yesterday by LinkedIn and Citi, 9 percent of women say that marriage and relationships do not factor into their consideration of success, compared to 5 percent last year.
It turns out that men are more likely than women to equate marriage with success: a quarter of women polled said that being in a “strong, loving relationship” would constitute “having it all,” and the distinction of being married was unnecessary — a position that only 14 percent of men agree with. 79 percent of men equate “having it all” with being in a “strong, loving marriage,” versus 66 percent of women.
Of course, this could also just be further evidence that men tend to have less nuanced perspectives on “having it all,” because they’re never really asked about it.
