Search, Dating, and Segregation in Marriage

Yair Antler, Daniel Bird and Daniel Fershtman

No 17965, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We study statistical discrimination in a marriage market where agents, characterized by attractiveness (e.g., wealth, education) and background (e.g., race, ethnicity), engage in time-consuming search. Upon meeting, couples date to learn about their match's quality. Following Phelps (1972), different backgrounds impede such learning. We show that even absent any bias, equilibrium features segregation. Moreover, welfare improvements enhance segregation. In particular, radical improvements in search technologies induce complete segregation and a “dating apocalypse'' where agents replace partners frequently. We show that, in line with empirical findings, segregation is decreasing in couples’ attractiveness, and provide conditions for (probabilistic) positive sorting by attractiveness.

Keywords: Statistical discrimination; Segregation; Learning; Search and matching frictions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17965 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17965

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP17965

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().