Dating Preferences and Meeting Opportunities in Mate Choice Decisions

Much empirical evidence shows that female and male partners look alike along a variety of attributes. It is, however, unclear how this positive sorting comes about because marriage is an equilibrium outcome arising from a process that entails searching, meeting, and choosing one another. This study takes advantage of unique data to shed light on the forces driving choices at the earliest stage of a relationship. Both women and men value physical attributes, such as age and weight, and reveal that their dating choices are assortative along several traits. Importantly, meeting opportunities have a substantial role in determining dating proposals.

[1]  L. S. Shapley,et al.  College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage , 2013, Am. Math. Mon..

[2]  Paul W. Eastwick,et al.  Online Dating , 2012, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[3]  M. Francesconi,et al.  On the Emergence of Toyboys: The Timing of Marriage with Aging and Uncertain Careers , 2011 .

[4]  G. Bruze.  Marriage Choices of Movie Stars: Does Spouse’s Education Matter? , 2011, Journal of Human Capital.

[5]  J. Eeckhout,et al.  Spatial Sorting: Why New York, Los Angeles and Detroit Attract the Greatest Minds as Well as the Unskilled , 2010, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[6]  Xun Tang,et al.  'Inference of Signs of Interaction Effects in Simultaneous Games with Incomplete Information', Second Version , 2010 .

[7]  Marco Francesconi,et al.  How Humans Cognitively Manage an Abundance of Mate Options , 2010, Psychological science.

[8]  Xun Tang,et al.  Inference of Signs of Interaction Effects in Simultaneous Games with Incomplete Information , 2010 .

[9]  Coen N. Teulings,et al.  Marriage and the city: Search frictions and sorting of singles , 2010 .

[10]  Adeline Delavande,et al.  Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching , 2009 .

[11]  H. Nielsen,et al.  Educational Homogamy: How Much is Opportunities? , 2009 .

[12]  P. Todd,et al.  The relationship between number of potential mates and mating skew in humans , 2009, Animal Behaviour.

[13]  Jan Eeckhout,et al.  Sorting and Decentralized Price Competition , 2008 .

[14]  Günter J. Hitsch,et al.  Matching and Sorting in Online Dating , 2008 .

[15]  Paul W. Eastwick,et al.  Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Revisited : Do People Know What They Initially Desire in a Romantic Partner ? , 2008 .

[16]  Peter M. Todd,et al.  Different cognitive processes underlie human mate choices and mate preferences , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[17]  Nicolas L. Jacquet,et al.  On the Segmentation of Markets , 2007, Journal of Political Economy.

[18]  Jeffrey T. Hancock,et al.  The truth about lying in online dating profiles , 2007, CHI.

[19]  A. Little,et al.  Social transmission of face preferences among humans , 2007, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[20]  Paul W. Eastwick,et al.  Speed-dating as an invaluable tool for studying romantic attraction: A methodological primer. , 2007 .

[21]  P. Chiappori,et al.  Investment in Schooling and the Marriage Market , 2006, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[22]  Emir Kamenica,et al.  Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence From a Speed Dating Experiment , 2006 .

[23]  A. Siow,et al.  Who Marries Whom and Why , 2006, Journal of Political Economy.

[24]  B. Moldovanu,et al.  The Theory of Assortative Matching Based on Costly Signals , 2005 .

[25]  David Marmaros,et al.  How Do Friendships Form? , 2005 .

[26]  R. Kurzban,et al.  HurryDate: Mate preferences in action , 2005 .

[27]  Robert D. Mare,et al.  Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003 , 2005, Demography.

[28]  P. Gautier,et al.  Marriage and the City , 2005 .

[29]  G. Harrison,et al.  Field experiments , 1924, The Journal of Agricultural Science.

[30]  David S. Lyle,et al.  Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury , 2004, Journal of Political Economy.

[31]  Alberto Bisin,et al.  Religious Intermarriage and Socialization in the United States , 2004, Journal of Political Economy.

[32]  S. Emlen,et al.  Cognitive processes underlying human mate choice: The relationship between self-perception and mate preference in Western society , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[33]  E. Paice,et al.  Spoiled for choice , 2003, Medical education.

[34]  M. L. Cooper,et al.  Seventy years of research on personality and close relationships: substantive and methodological trends over time. , 2002, Journal of personality.

[35]  S. Kozieł,et al.  The impact of traits offered in personal advertisements on response rates , 2002 .

[36]  Bernard Fortin,et al.  Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply , 2002, Journal of Political Economy.

[37]  Linda Y. Wong,et al.  Structural Estimation of Marriage Models , 2002, Journal of Labor Economics.

[38]  J. Angrist.  How Do Sex Ratios Affect Marriage and Labor Markets? Evidence from America's Second Generation , 2001, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[39]  H. Flap,et al.  Assortative Meeting and Mating: Unintended Consequences of Organized Settings for Partner Choices , 2001 .

[40]  S. Hoffman.  A Treatise on the Family , 2000 .

[41]  K. Grammer,et al.  The Body and Face of Woman: One Ornament that Signals Quality? , 1999 .

[42]  Robin I. M. Dunbar,et al.  Impact of market value on human mate choice decisions , 1999, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[43]  J. Emery,et al.  Optimum body-mass index and maximum sexual attractiveness , 1998, The Lancet.

[44]  P. Todd,et al.  Mate choice turns cognitive , 1998, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[45]  Lones Smith.  The Marriage Model with Search Frictions , 1997, Journal of Political Economy.

[46]  R. K. Young,et al.  Social pressures for assortative mating , 1997 .

[47]  Melvyn G. Coles,et al.  Marriage and Class , 1997 .

[48]  Matthijs Kalmijn,et al.  Assortative Mating by Cultural and Economic Occupational Status , 1994, American Journal of Sociology.

[49]  R. Harrowell.  The right man for the job , 1992 .

[50]  M. Bagnoli,et al.  Courtship as a Waiting Game , 1991, Journal of Political Economy.

[51]  R. Mare.  Five decades of educational assortative mating. , 1991 .

[52]  J. Reitz.  From Many Strands: Ethnic and Racial Groups in Contemporary America.By Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters. Russell Sage Foundation. 304 pp. $29.95 , 1990 .

[53]  John W. Mohr,et al.  Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment, and Marital Selection , 1985, American Journal of Sociology.

[54]  M. Hout.  The Association between Husbands' and Wives' Occupations in Two-Earner Families , 1982, American Journal of Sociology.

[55]  L. Stone.  The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. , 1977 .

[56]  R. Plomin,et al.  Assortative mating by unwed biological parents of adopted children. , 1977, Science.

[57]  G. Becker.  A Theory of Marriage: Part II , 1974, Journal of Political Economy.

[58]  G. Becker.  Chapter Title: a Theory of Marriage a Theory of Marriage , 2022 .

[59]  Thomas C. Schelling,et al.  Dynamic models of segregation , 1971 .

[60]  G. William Walster,et al.  Physical attractiveness and dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis☆ , 1971 .

[61]  W. R. Smith.  The History of Human Marriage , 1891, Nature.

[62]  Soohyung Lee.  Marriage and Online Mate-Search Services: Evidence From South Korea , 2009 .

[63]  H. Nielsen,et al.  Educational Homogamy , 2009, The Journal of Human Resources.

[64]  Emir Kamenica,et al.  Racial Preferences in Dating , 2008 .

[65]  J. Eeckhout.  Minorities and Endogenous Segregation , 2006 .

[66]  D. Bills.  The shape of social inequality : stratification and ethnicity in comparative perspective , 2005 .

[67]  H. Blossfeld,et al.  Who marries whom? : educational systems as marriage markets in modern societies , 2003 .

[68]  T. Millon,et al.  Personality and social psychology , 2003 .

[69]  Lones Smith,et al.  Assortative Matching and Search , 2000 .

[70]  M. Kalmijn,et al.  Intermarriage and homogamy: causes, patterns, trends. , 1998, Annual review of sociology.

[71]  John H. Pencavel.  Assortative Mating by Schooling and the Work Behavior of Wives and Husbands , 1998 .

[72]  Robin I. M. Dunbar,et al.  Conditional Mate Choice Strategies in Humans: Evidence from ‘Lonely Hearts’ Advertisements , 1995 .

[73]  D. Buss.  The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating , 1994 .

[74]  N. Ambady,et al.  Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. , 1992 .

[75]  Y. Weiss,et al.  The Formation and Dissolution of Families: Why Marry , 1992 .

[76]  J. Jupp.  From Many Strands: Ethnic and Racial Groups in Contemporary America , 1990 .

[77]  D. Lam.  Marriage Markets and Assortative Mating with Household Public Goods: Theoretical Results and Empirical Implications , 1988 .

[78]  R. Trivers.  Parental investment and sexual selection , 1972 .

[79]  B. Campbell.  Forces and Strategies in Evolution. (Book Reviews: Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, 1871-1971) , 1972 .

[80]  T. Schelling.  Models of Segregation , 1969 .

[81]  C. Hamilton.  Marriage as a trade , 2022 .