Online Dating's Impact on Marriage Markets: A Stable Preferences Perspective

Has Online Dating Revolutionized the Marriage Market?

Abstract:

This paper explores whether online dating has significantly transformed the dynamics of choosing marriage partners and influencing societal trs. With a growing body of evidence suggesting that online platforms have become the predominant means for individuals to meet their spouses Rosenfeld et al., 2019, one might assume that technological advancements could potentially reduce search costs, thereby shaping preferences and selection processes.

In this study, we employedof targeted search analysis on data from the American Community Survey spanning from 2008-2021. We further utilized historical Census data dating back to 1960 and 1980 for broader comparisons. Our goal was to quantify individuals' preferences regarding partner selection-such as similarity, selectivity, complementarity of attributes, and the impact on income inequality within households.

Our findings indicate that there are robust preferences for marriage partners who share common racial backgrounds, educational attnment, age similarities, while also valuing higher income levels and skills. However, our analysis reveals that preferences for such trts have remned relatively stable across the observed period 2008-21, particularly with respect to online dating's emergence as a dominant platform.

Moreover, we explored changes in selectivity-how individuals screen potential partners-and found that this was predominantly influenced by race, followed closely by education and age. Notably, females showed slight enhancements in selecting partners based on age criteria compared to males who became more selective regarding educational standards over time.

Evaluating the impact of these preferences on inequality, we discovered that as individuals increasingly marry those more like themselves, household income disparities have escalated by approximately half from 1980 to 2020. Among contributing factors, selection based on education level is responsible for about 35 of this increase, skills follow at roughly 30, while joint consideration of income and skill levels accounts for an additional 15. Selection criteria related to age contribute around 15, and preference for partners of the same race plays a relatively minor role in exacerbating inequality.

Interestingly, despite the widespread adoption of online dating sites and apps, our study found no evidence that search costs have declined. In fact, there was a surprising lack of improvement in matching efficiency compared to labor markets, which suggests technological advancements alone are insufficient in significantly altering how people process information for effective partner selection.

This paradoxical outcome can be attributed to individuals' limitations in processing information-regardless of technological enhancements-that may affect their proficiency in selecting marriage partners. The findings suggest that the potential benefits of online dating might not have led to substantial changes in preferences, selectivity, or overall matching outcomes within the marriage market over time.

References:

Rosenfeld et al., The Rise and Dominance of Online Dating: From a Rare and Unconventional Behavior to the Mnstream, American Sociological Review 2019.

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