Searching for Mates Using 'Fast and Frugal' Heuristics: a Demographic Perspective

Francesco Billari

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2000, vol. 03, issue 01n04, 53-65

Abstract: The paper deals with the search for a mate in human populations, where agents behave according to the bounded rational, 'fast and frugal' heuristics proposed by Todd (1997), which he calls Take the Next Best (TNB). The perspective is that of a demographer, and the main focus is on the macro regularities, in particular, the shape of the frequency distribution of mating time and the proportion of ever-mated, arising from the micro hypotheses. We show – both by simulation and by formal proof – that if agents behave homogeneously according to the same TNB rule the shape of the distribution is monotonically decreasing. Switching then to the hypothesis that individuals act heterogeneously, with different TNB rules, the typical shape of the union formation curve emerges. Finally, we argue that students of demography might gain important hints for their theories by simulation-based approaches and that a population-oriented focus might also be advantageous for studying the mental models for agents.

Keywords: Mate search; Marriage curve; Micro-macro demography; Population heterogeneity; Agent-based computational demography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219525900000054

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