Tuesday, February 5, 2013

On the Fallen Arm

Xenoblade Chronicles is a critically acclaimed game. I haven’t had a chance to play it, but I have enjoyed its music on Youtube very much. Sunday night I was listening to a song call “On the Fallen Arm.” The music is simple and touching, like sea rolling toward the cliff, the flushing water sparkling in daylight.
An MSN message box popped out. It was the former advisor of my master thesis. He hinted me I could get fired if I don't join his circle and serve him. Then he asked me a question, a question with no easy answer. I have known him for a long time. His question was actually a quest. And I expect there will be more and more quests from him after I become an assistant professor. To avoid the blog to be found by him, I express his quest in different ways. Today I am more than happy to share it on the web because I get no benefit by hiding it.
 
Quest: Find the ratio of households with asymmetric education in the US.
 
The data I use is from the family dataset in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics 2009. After deleting single families, there are approximately 4300 married or cohabited households in the sample. I categorized the level of education into five categories, from lower than high school to PhD/Medical/Law. Summing up all households with wife and husbands' education in different categories and dividing the summed value by the sample size.
 
Quest Completed!
 
Among all samples, 47 percent of households have asymmetric education, 26 percent of men have wives with education higher, and 20 percent of women have husbands with education higher. The results might be common in the US, but very likely to be opposite to the cases in many Asian countries, where it is supposed to that a woman should marry a man taller, wealthier and well-educated.
 
It is sad I am from a culture driven largely by materials, and the spirit counts so minimal. I think should play Xenoblade Chronicles to imagine how good it is for a man to run freely around the great plain, the raining beach, the gorges valley.

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