Today’s guest is someone for whom I had the privilege of working when I was first in New York City working as a junior reporter at Money Magazine, and there my guest Jon Birger was a senior writer. And so it is with great pleasure that I introduce him today on the show. Jon is the recent author now of the newly published book “DATE-ONOMICS: How Dating Became A Lopsided Numbers Game.” He explains the shortage of college educated men for every heterosexual woman out there, what he calls the “man deficit”, and it’s not that he’s just not into you — well there’s just not enough of him, he explains. And in the book Jon further goes on to talk about why this is the case, examining a combination of demographics, statistics, game theory, and good old number crunching. And good news, he offers some solutions for his female readers who wish to get married. Like which college to attend, if you’re young enough, where to hang out and where to live in order to meet Mr. Right.

In addition to his book, Jon is a contributor to Fortune Magazine, as well as a freelance journalist who’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Barons, Bloomberg Businessweek, among many others. Prior to his work as a freelance journalist, Jon was a senior writer at both Fortune, and as I mentioned, Money Magazine. You may also recognize his name because he’s had numerous radio and TV appearances for this book, ranging from MSNBC, to CNN, to NPR, Good Morning America, and most notably in 2013 the Silicon Valley Trade Group “Always On Network” names Jon a power player in technology business media. So, he is a hard-hitting journalist on top of an author of a wildly popular book.

Several takeaways from our interview with Jon:

• The economic landscape behind the dating world today and solutions for women who feel they just can’t find Mr. Right.
• This absurd notion that goes around, we’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, of “dating down”, right? And why it’s insulting to use that phrase.
• And the power of the ultimatum; why women who wish to be married should really try this at home, Jon says.

If you’d like to learn more about Jon Birger, visit his website www.dateonomics.com and www.jonbirger.com and follow him on Twitter @JonBirger1.

My favorite quote from our time together: “The value of an ultimatum is it creates artificial scarcity in an otherwise abundant marketplace.” – Click To Tweet