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arXiv:1904.01050 (cs)
[Submitted on 1 Apr 2019 (v1), last revised 3 Apr 2019 (this version, v2)]

Title:Structure of online dating markets in US cities

Authors:Elizabeth E. Bruch, M. E. J. Newman
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Abstract:We study the structure of heterosexual dating markets in the United States through an analysis of the interactions of several million users of a large online dating web site, applying recently developed network analysis methods to the pattern of messages exchanged among users. Our analysis shows that the strongest driver of romantic interaction at the national level is simple geographic proximity, but at the local level other demographic factors come into play. We find that dating markets in each city are partitioned into submarkets along lines of age and ethnicity. Sex ratio varies widely between submarkets, with younger submarkets having more men and fewer women than older ones. There is also a noticeable tendency for minorities, especially women, to be younger than the average in older submarkets, and our analysis reveals how this kind of racial stratification arises through the messaging decisions of both men and women. Our study illustrates how network techniques applied to online interactions can reveal the aggregate effects of individual behavior on social structure.
Comments: 15 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. One minor error corrected in this version
Subjects: Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)
Cite as: arXiv:1904.01050 [cs.SI]
  (or arXiv:1904.01050v2 [cs.SI] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1904.01050

Submission history

From: Mark Newman [view email]
[v1] Mon, 1 Apr 2019 18:21:14 UTC (1,678 KB)
[v2] Wed, 3 Apr 2019 17:05:11 UTC (1,678 KB)
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