Is Online Dating Efficient?

As I approach my 20th wedding anniversary (next week), online dating is a topic of little personal interest. For the benefit of my readers who are still single, however, I pass along this recent SSRN post:

What Makes You Click? Mate Preferences and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating: This paper uses a novel data set obtained from an online dating service to draw inferences on mate preferences and to investigate the role played by these preferences in determining match outcomes and sorting patterns. The empirical analysis is based on a detailed record of the site users' attributes and their partner search, which allows us to estimate a rich preference specification that takes into account a large number of partner characteristics. Our revealed preference estimates complement many previous studies that are based on survey methods. In addition, we provide evidence on mate preferences that people might not truthfully reveal in a survey, in particular regarding race preferences. In order to examine the quantitative importance of the estimated preferences in the formation of matches, we simulate match outcomes using the Gale-Shapley algorithm and examine the resulting correlations in mate attributes. The Gale-Shapley algorithm predicts the online sorting patterns well. Therefore, the match outcomes in this online dating market appear to be approximately efficient in the Gale-Shapley sense. Using the Gale-Shapley algorithm, we also find that we can predict sorting patterns in actual marriages if we exclude the unobservable utility component in our preference specification when simulating match outcomes. One possible explanation for this finding suggests that search frictions play a role in the formation of marriages.

Posted on Tuesday, September 19 2006 | Permalink

There is more work on online dating on SSRN, too, like my paper:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=629261

Posted by  on  09/20  at  05:04 AM

Because no empirical evidence can beat anecdotes from the horse’s mouth (me being the horse), I’ll share my own experiences with the wonderful world of online dating.

First, online dating is at least as effective as attempting to meet a significant other through more conventional, real-time means.  Of my last two girlfriends, one I met in real-time and the other, online.  It doesn’t strike me as any MORE effective than the tried and true methods that we’ve perfected throughout history, but it also certainly isn’t any less effective.

Secondly, what online dating attempts to do is create a socially acceptable forum for singles to meet one another for the sole purpose of initiating a date.  This is a necessary venue in a world where many of us are “bowling alone,” as Putnam would say, and where social norms seem to prevent the sorts of public interrogations that would be necessary to ask, say, the girl on the subway to go to lunch with you.

But while online dating can correct for many societal flaws, it can’t remove human nature.  Men are still men, emailing scores of girls with blanket introductions and often allowing looks to be a deciding factor.  And women are still women, apt to email a gent a number of times, only to seemingly cease to exist for no apparent reason at some point during the conversation.  The stereotypically indecisive and fickle nature of the dating female can’t be changed by cyberspace, nor can the superficial and hyper-aggressive nature of the dating male.  And, as such, online dating remains a woman’s market, just like dating in real life.

Posted by  on  09/24  at  02:17 PM
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