There's more men hanging around most stages of the life cycle

GATHER around, ladies, I have some important news. The man drought is receding.

GATHER around, ladies, I have some important news. The man drought is receding.

No, there hasn't been a man deluge in the upper reaches of the Murray. And, no, there hasn't been an exodus of women thereby rebalancing the gender distribution in Australia.

In a comparison between the number of men and women in every single year of age between 2006 and 2009, it is apparent there's simply more men hanging around most stages of the life cycle.

At the aggregate level, the excess of women relative to men has dropped from 133,000 to 98,000, which means 35,000 more men than women have surfaced in Australia over the past four years.

I suspect some of this male excess has resulted from the global financial crisis: the boys are coming home from Dubai, London and New York.

And they are probably single since they are not being accompanied by a commensurate number of women.

Ladies, perhaps you should hang out at Sydney's international terminal and filter the best prospects as they emerge from Customs.

Consider the gender balance in the relationship heartland, the 35-year-old cohort.

In 2006, there were 164,000 women and 160,000 men aged 35 in Australia which meant, if they all paired up, this would leave 4000 women without a partner. By last year, the numbers in this cohort had softened: 154,000 men and 155,000 women which means there has been an improvement in the odds of women finding a partner the same age.

But this is not to say the extra male product has been evenly or fairly distributed across all age groups. If we take the example of women who were 35 in 2006 (and so were born in 1971) and who were 38 in 2009, it is apparent that this lot is still no better off in the odds of finding a male partner.

Last year, there were 169,000 women aged 38 compared with 166,000 men meaning that, again if they all paired up, 3000 women would miss out.

For 1971-born women the supply of men their age has eased marginally from a deficit of 4000 in 2006 to a deficit of 3000 in 2009. It hasn't exactly rained men in this space over recent years. But the situation for 1971-born women is in fact even more urgent than is suggested by these numbers.

Typically, and for whatever reason, women tend to partner up with men two years older.

So a 1971-born woman will typically look for a partner born in 1969.

If she looks for a partner her own age then, as we have seen, there's not enough male product to go around.

The problem is that Australia's 169,000 women aged 38 in 2009 don't look for a partner among the 166,000 men aged 38, they look for a partner among the 156,000 men born in 1969.

The underlying ideally-aged partnerable-male deficit for 1971-born women is not 3000 or 2 per cent, it is 13,000 or eight percentage points.

I might add that in 2006 this ideally aged prospective-partner equation for women born in 1971 was exactly the same: a deficit of eight percentage points. So, the aggregate gender balance may have improved to the extent of a net extra 35,000 men since 2006, but none of these men have rained upon the parched and arid lands inhabited by thirsty 1971-born women.

I'm not sure why there's such a deficit of men born in 1969. The only explanation I can think of is that this cohort was unusually attracted overseas as young adults.

Interestingly, this lot would have hit the hot-zone of working overseas (typically 24-28) in the mid-1990s when places such as Dubai, Shanghai, Mumbai, London and Silicon Valley were attracting talent from across the globe.

I don't want to depress 1971-born women too much, but equally I believe they would want to know the facts. Here's a sobering fact: There are more women alive today in Australia who were born in 1971 (169,000) than there are women, or men, born in any other single year. The women of 1971 are, statistically, very common.

The next most populous single-year cohort is men born in 1971 (166,000) but the sad fact is this bounty of male product is most likely to have been thoroughly picked over by women born in 1973, and there's only 160,000 of them.

Apparently, just two years separates man-drought from man-plenty. Sometimes life, and the demographics of finding a life partner, just isn't fair.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG Partner

[e-mail]; www.twitter.com/bernardsalt