Dating Preferences and Meeting Opportunities in Mate Choice Decisions

Abstract

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 a unique data set 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 are found to have a substantial role in determining dating proposals.

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