The ratio of man and woman now is 1:4 while other said that the actual number is 1:5. A group of male were talking about it hilariously. Before I go further, a question is arising regarding to the conversation topic. What is the intention of talking about the proportion of male and female anyway? To marry more than one female as well as to have a relationship with more than one woman are two of the goals, no matter these are only a joke or not. However, I will not write it here either it is illegal or not to have that kind of intention. What I am going to write deeper is about the number itself, the number that become one of the reasons for marrying more than one female.

Actually, according to most of male, what makes a woman look interesting in their eyes? On Allan and Barbara Pease’s Why Men Lie and Women Cry, the factors boil down to athletic and curvy body, sensual mouth, nice chest, long legs, and other physical characteristics plus age that ranges from 18 to 30, a woman’s fertility age. These are the requirements that make a man wants to take a woman as his wife, beside her inner qualities. Now, let us take a deeper look into the proportion of male and female itself.

A friend from a friend of mine made an analysis about Indonesia population derived from CIA web data. Below are the data of Indonesia inhabitant’s age structure, evaluation on July 2008.

0-14 years                  : 28.4% (male 34,343,198/female 33,175,135) —> M : F = 1.03 : 1
15-64 years                : 65.7% (male 78,330,830/female 77,812,339) —> M : F = 1.01 : 1
65 years and over   : 5.8%   (male 6,151,305/female 7,699,548)     —> M : F = 0.08 : 1

The data has been shown and dissimilarity has been found between male conversation and the known data. It is the proportion itself. Now, let’s break down the data and then other interesting facts will appear. Firstly, the whole proportion on the data has shown significant difference. Definitely the male population has the same number with that of the female and not 1:4 or even 1:5. Secondly, look at the age structure from 0-14 years and 15-64 years. The most interesting fact is the total amount of male is bigger than that of female (1.03:1 and 1.01:1) whilst on the 65 years and over, the female proportion is bigger than that of the male. When the data is translated into percentage, the comparison of the total population is 44.4% (male):55.6% (female). It means, the total female population does bigger than that of the male but the spread is placed at above 65 years.

At last, do the reason, female amount is bigger and then led into marrying woman that suitable with male wants still be an advantage? I would say that when male stick on their desire in adding up their spouse, they had better take the older one, which is 65 years and above. However, certainly the marriage would happen if only the 65-year-old woman and/or over still in sequence with that of male.

PS: Thank you to Bayu Bintarto for having forwarded the data to mailing list