Online dating in the US--is it past peak?

 Here's a 2022 survey I just came across from Pew Research. It caught my eye because it reports a much lower percentage of life partners arising from dating sites than were found in surveys by sociologists in 2009 and 2017.

From Looking for Love to Swiping the Field: Online Dating in the U.S.
Tinder is the most widely used dating platform in the U.S. About half of those who have used dating sites or apps have had positive experiences, and some have met their partners on one. But safety and harassment remain issues
By Colleen McClain and  Risa Gelles-Watnick 

 

 

 

"One-in-ten adults who are partnered – that is, they are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship – say they met this person on a dating site or app. The share rises to 20% of partnered adults under 30 who say online dating brought them together; about a quarter of LGB partnered adults say the same."

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Those numbers of partnerships seem a lot lower than earlier numbers I recounted in this post:

Friday, August 9, 2019  Coupling up with the help of the internet

 

 

The Downside of Fertility by Claudia Goldin---Dads versus duds

 Here's the latest from Claudia Goldin, on dads versus duds.

 The Downside of Fertility  by Claudia Goldin, NBER Working Paper 34268, DOI 10.3386/w34268,  September 2025 

 Abstract: The fertility decline is everywhere in the world today. Moreover, the decline goes decades back in the histories of rich countries. Birthrates have been below replacement in the U.S. and Europe since the mid-1970s, although further declines occurred after the Great Recession. The reasons for the declines from the 1970s to the early 2000s involve greater female autonomy and a mismatch between the desires of men and women. Men benefit more from maintaining traditions; women benefit more from eschewing them. When the probability is low that men will abandon traditions, some career women will not have children and others will delay, often too long. The fertility histories of the U.S. and those of many European and Asian countries speak to the impact of the mismatch on birth rates. The experience of middle income and even poorer nations may also be due to related factors. Various constraints that I group under matching problems have caused fertility to be lower than otherwise and imply that fertility has a “downside.” 

 

"Even though women’s enhanced agency is an important factor in determining fertility in most developed nations today, its role in altering birth rates has depended on a related element. That factor is the ability of women to be assured they can reap the financial and personal rewards from their education while raising their children. The more that men can credibly signal they will be dependable “dads” and not disappointing “duds,”the higher will be the birthrate in the face of greater female agency.
 

"Therefore, even though the major factor in the decline of fertility is increased women’s agency, the real downside or obstacle is the need for husbands and fathers to reliably demonstrate their commitment. I will provide two related models that make the point that the real problem is a mismatch between what women  need to enjoy the fruits of their autonomy and what credible commitments men can make."

In China, you can hire a woman to disrupt a husband's extra-marital affair

 The Guardian reviews a movie about a kind of covert marriage therapy becoming available in China, in which a 'mistress dispeller" is hired to intervene and covertly disrupt the relationship between a wayward husband and a mistress, with the aim of returning him to his wife.

If your husband’s having an affair, this woman will get rid of her: the gripping film about China’s ‘mistress dispellers’
Available for hire, professional persuaders deceive their way into the lives of cheating men – and see off the extra lover. We meet the maker of a jaw-dropping documentary about a growing phenomenon  by Amy Hawkins

"Wang Zhenxi, a mistress dispeller based in north-central China’s Henan province, is one of a growing number of self-styled professionals who earn a living by intervening in people’s marriages – to “dispel” them of intruders

...

"Teacher Wang’s profession, if it can be called that, has only become a phenomenon in China in the last 10 years. As the country grapples with falling marriage rates, rising divorce rates and an increasing number of young people refusing to wed altogether, an entire “love industry” aimed at promoting and protecting the institution of marriage has emerged. There are dating camps, government-sponsored marriage initiatives and even dating apps aimed at parents wanting to set their unattached children up with partners. “Divorce is easy,” says Teacher Wang’s assistant on a live stream. “It’s easy to just leave. It’s harder to take responsibility and provide your family with a good life.”

...

But while the struggle to find love is a universal one, hiring someone to pretend to be an old friend – so that they can persuade your husband to end his affair on your behalf – is not. Some viewers might wonder why the wife doesn’t just suggest couples therapy. Lo explains that, according to Teacher Wang, therapy is still very stigmatised in China. “To enter as a stranger and a professional into a private setting and ask someone to divulge their family struggles would be unthinkable.” Teacher Wang “would be ejected immediately”.

Romantic matching while kinky, short, Saudi, or Chinese

 Here are some dating and matrimony stories that have recently caught my eye

 The Guardian has the story of tourists wandering into the ethical monogamy site Feeld:

Unconventional dating app Feeld reports surge in ‘vanilla tourists’. User base has grown by 30% year on year since 2022, raising questions of how to integrate new and longstanding members   by Rachel Hall

 

Here's the short story:

The shorter man’s search for love  by Leah Harper

 

Here's a Saudi app (HT: Michele Petochi), to be used by parents or the daring, from Arab News:

Saudi matchmaking app, Awaser, is helping individuals find partners by bridging tradition and modernity by Afshan Aziz

 "One of the app’s most distinctive features is the ability for families to create and manage accounts on behalf of their children, a model that preserves the essence of traditional matchmaking while increasing the chances of finding a suitable match."

 

Here's the Economist on bride price inflation in China:

Bride prices are surging in China  Why is the government struggling to curb them?

Good luck to all, and be careful out there.

After the proposal: the market for weddings

Weddings are a big business. So is the business of matching brides to wedding service providers.  But there are a lot of vendors with complaints about the Knot, the biggest matchmaker of brides and service providers.

 The New Yorker has the story:

Does the Knot Have a “Fake Brides” Problem?
The popular wedding website helps d.j.s, caterers, and florists find spouses-to-be. Some venders say they’re finding something else.  By Adam Iscoe

" In addition to hosting gift registries and wedding websites, and offering reception ideas and relationship advice (“What to Know About Walmart Wedding Cakes,” “How to Prepare for Sex on Your Wedding Night,” “Dislike Your Spouse’s Last Name? Here’s What to Do”), the Knot is used by millions of couples to find their wedding venders, who pay to advertise on it. 

...

"Each year, Americans drop roughly seventy billion dollars hosting weddings. Most people think that this is too much—that couples are overspending, that venders are overcharging, and that the wedding-industrial complex verges on unethical.

...

" running a wedding business is especially tough: there are hundreds of thousands of competitors; costs are rising, owing in part to inflation; and, for many venders, bookings and budgets have decreased by about twenty-five per cent. According to a recent industry survey, a third of all wedding venders said that they are doing poorer financially than they were a year ago. “Florists are the worst,” McIntosh said. “There are so many broke florists.”

...

"Last year, the Knot facilitated four billion dollars in consumer spending via advertising on its platforms. Most of the company’s revenue comes not from brides and grooms but from wedding venders. Nine hundred thousand venders in more than ten countries use the Knot, and many pay to be advertised to couples—“leads,” in industry parlance—seeking their services. "

Matchmaking on campus with Marriage Pact

 Happy Valentine's Day:)

Here's a story from the Amherst Student (the student newspaper), about an annual event on many campuses that started at Stanford.

True Love or True Disappointment? Students Reflect on the 2024 Marriage Pact by Savita Jani and Erin Sullivan

"With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, love is on the brain for many Amherst students. But Cupid isn’t just around on Feb. 14 — back in September, over 1,200 Mammoths sought romance through the Marriage Pact, an online questionnaire that matches students with their most statistically compatible partner on campus.

"At Amherst, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) contracts with the Marriage Pact company, a sizable operation available at 100 schools across the country. Marriage Pact has served over 570,000 participants and made over 285,000 matches since its founding. It uses its own algorithm that takes psychology, “market design,” and linear algebra into account in order to find students their ideal match: a perfectly compatible other half whom they can one day marry (if they don’t find someone else).

"Marriage Pact also claims to address the nuances of romance by recognizing when similar values are necessary for a good match and when they aren’t. According to their website, 3-4% of Marriage Pact matches date for a year or longer. But how well has the Marriage Pact worked for Amherst students?

"To answer this question, we interviewed several Mammoths and collected responses from 54 respondents through an anonymous Google Form survey.

 

Here are my previous posts on the Marriage Pact.