$700 Billion in Dating Wealth Transfers

Dalrock had an interesting piece about a woman who had 50 dates in 6 months, and another who had 100 dates in a year, but still couldn't find "the right guy."  Naturally he focused on "choice addiction" whereas my biased mind wandered in the realm of economics.

"How much money are guys forking over for these girls?  I mean, how much in non-taxable income is that?  It's certainly significant!"

So off to the Excel spreadsheet I went to do some very rough back-of-napkin economics.

Most women, we will admit, do not get 100 dates a year, let alone 50.  But I think it's safe to say the average woman will have 10 dates a year.

The dates I estimate cost more than the $5 el-cheapo movie you could afford in college, vs. the $120 fine wine and dining night out when you're in your upper income tax bracket.  Let's say $50 just for s's and g's.

But wait!  Women do go dutch sometimes!  Yes, "sometimes."  I'll say 20% of the time based on personal experience (unless somebody can cite a government database that tracks this), netting out a $10 per date subsidy by the dutch going dames.  Net cost to the guy per date $40.

How many years does the average woman date?  Well in the olden days, maybe 5-10.  But given dating starts around 14, average age of first marriage is 28, so 14 years.  BUT WAIT!  Let's not forget divorce, allowing people to pleasure of going out dating again!  7 year itch, plus 28, woman is back on the market at 35, 20 years until she's 55 and more or less off the dating market forever.  14 + 20 = 34.  Let's just call it 35 to account for the R-Hamster Effect.

So in the end, the average woman can expect to get $14,000 over the course of her life in free food, movies, drinks and other forms of entertainment.  I actually think that's a little low, but I'll just stick with my methodology.

Final factor to account for is the number of women dating at any given moment.  I'm too lazy to look up demographic data and population distribution over age.  Let's call it 50,000,000 or 1/3 the current female population.

Total bill = $700 billion.

Sound about right?

My question is whether or not we ought to start factoring in these income and wealth transfers when calculating the "wage gap."