Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Or, why do Americans ever marry Americans?

Is the country of your dreams denying you permission to immigrate? Even the most anti-immigration country will normally give you a green light if you marry one of its citizens. Sure, you’ll have to endure a degrading interview process to verify that the marriage is “genuine.” But if no other immigration rationale fits, “We’re in love and we want to get married” will almost always do the trick.

Which raises a big question: If you’re a citizen of a desirable country, why would you ever marry a fellow citizen?

To grasp the enormity of the puzzle with a little more specificity, ask yourself: “If the United States sold green cards, how much would people pay to get them?” Some of the poorest people in the world already pony up tens of thousands of dollars to migrate illegally. The right to come legally would be far more valuable, because (a) you would almost definitely reach your destination safely, and (b) you wouldn’t be limited to black market jobs after your arrival. What price would leave immigration at its current level? For the U.S., $100,000 is very conservative estimate. (Remember: Once it’s legal, conventional lenders will be eager to finance your migration).

So what? Every single adult American effectively possesses an immigration permit worth at least $100,000. Yes, there’s a catch: You can only sell it to someone you’re willing to marry. But the catch has a massive loophole: The world is packed with extraordinarily marriageable foreigners! So every single adult American is effectively choosing between the best domestic spouse they can win on their merits alone, or the best foreign spouse they can win with a six-figure subsidy.

Sure, you don’t want someone to marry you solely for your net worth. But if you’re choosing between the most lovable person who loves you without a $100,000 bonus, and the most lovable person who loves you with a $100,000 bonus, the latter is clearly a much more promising bet.

Or is it?

If you take evolutionary psychology seriously — as you should — you’ll notice a glaring gender gap: If you’re a citizen of desirable country, the foreign marriage market has a lot more to offer men than women.

As you may recall, men have evolved to put a high priority on women’s beauty, while women have evolved to put a high priority on men’s status. And to be blunt, foreign countries have far more women who are beautiful by American standards than men who are high-status by American standards.

Why the divergence? Because beauty is all-but-absolute, while status is deeply relative. A beautiful woman in Guatemala or Vietnam remains a beautiful woman in the U.S. But a high-status man in Guatemala or Vietnam will almost always lose much of his status if he moves to the U.S. This doesn’t just make foreign men less attractive to American women; it makes immigration less attractive to high-status foreign men.

Upshot: “Why would American women ever choose to marry American men?” isn’t such a puzzle after all. But “Why would American men ever choose to marry American women?” really is. I appreciate that American men don’t want to marry a beautiful foreign woman who only wants a green card. But if you can get an American woman to love you for yourself, why would you be unable to evoke the same emotions in the heart of a foreign woman?

Perhaps single American men are foolishly overlooking an amazing romantic opportunity. The more likely story, however, is that the whole preceding analysis overlooks the role of adverse selection.

We usually talk about adverse selection in the context of insurance markets. The people most eager to buy insurance are the people who need it the most. Who are the very customers insurance companies want the least. And while actual insurance companies are good at handling the adverse selection problem using actuarial science (unless government bars them from doing so), individuals looking for love aren’t.

Think of it this way: If you’re an average American man, the average American woman is unlikely to marry you unless she actually loves you. Your search may be long and discouraging, but once you think you’ve found true love, you probably have. In contrast, foreign women who don’t love you have a strong reason to pretend they do in order to get your marriage visa. Which has to keep you wondering all the way to the altar.

The tragedy of this adverse selection is that the fraction of foreign women who sincerely like you could easily be much higher than the fraction of American women who sincerely like you! Out of 30 American women who meet you, perhaps only one will actually like you. Out of 30 foreign women who meet you, perhaps three will actually like you. Triple the rate! But if none of the American women who don’t like you pretend to do so (because why would they?), and seven of the foreign women who don’t like you pretend to do so (to get a green card), “buying American” has an obvious advantage. Conditional on appearing to like you, the probability that an American woman in this example sincerely likes you is 100%, versus only 30% for a foreign woman.

Once you recognize this tragedy, can you overcome it? Not reliably, but it helps to think like an insurance company. They use statistical reasoning — and so should you. Most obviously, the better-off a woman is in her home country, the less likely she is to marry you purely for a green card. So profile elite women, and meet their families. And to belabor the obvious, spend a lot of time actually talking to each other.

Still, you’ll never approach the predictive skill of insurance companies. Not only do they have Big Data and top statisticians. Unlike you, they’re not making a single big once-and-for-all decision. An insurance company can sell you an annual policy and adjust your rate afterwards. But you can only have one spouse at a time.

Last point: When I ask, “Why do Americans ever marry Americans?,” I suspect that many non-economists will object, “What if everyone thought that way?” An intriguing hypothetical. If 50% of Americans started marrying foreigners, I suspect that nationalists would soon tighten restrictions on marriage visas. If 90% of the 50% of Americans marrying foreigners were male, I suspect that domestic feminists would join forces with nationalists to “ensure fairness to women.”

That said, if you’re just one person trying to find true love, who cares? Rightly or wrongly, only a small minority of single Americans currently take advantage of their invisible six-figure asset. Once you appreciate the value and pitfalls of your unseen asset clearly, you’ll be ready to use it wisely. For the betterment of yourself… and the one who’s meant for you.