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. 2015 May 12;112(19):5974-8.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1504811112. Epub 2015 Apr 27.

Assortative mating without assortative preference

Yu Xie  1 , Siwei Cheng  2 , Xiang Zhou  2
Affiliations

Assortative mating without assortative preference

Yu Xie et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Assortative mating--marriage of a man and a woman with similar social characteristics--is a commonly observed phenomenon. In the existing literature in both sociology and economics, this phenomenon has mainly been attributed to individuals' conscious preferences for assortative mating. In this paper, we show that patterns of assortative mating may arise from another structural source even if individuals do not have assortative preferences or possess complementary attributes: dynamic processes of marriages in a closed system. For a given cohort of youth in a finite population, as the percentage of married persons increases, unmarried persons who newly enter marriage are systematically different from those who married earlier, giving rise to the phenomenon of assortative mating. We use microsimulation methods to illustrate this dynamic process, using first the conventional deterministic Gale-Shapley model, then a probabilistic Gale-Shapley model, and then two versions of the encounter mating model.

Keywords: Gale–Shapley model; assortative mating; composition heterogeneity; encounter mating model; structural effect.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
(A and B) Assortative mating in the deterministic Gale–Shapley model. In A, gradations of color are used to represent marriages formed in different time periods. Specifically, bluer points correspond to earlier marriages, and redder points correspond to later marriages.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
(A and B) Assortative mating in the probabilistic Gale–Shapley model. In A, gradations of color are used to represent marriages formed in different time periods. Specifically, bluer points correspond to earlier marriages, and redder points correspond to later marriages.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
(A–D) Assortative mating in the encounter mating model. In A, gradations of color are used to represent marriages formed in different time periods. Specifically, bluer points correspond to earlier marriages, and redder points correspond to later marriages.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
(A–D) Assortative mating in the encounter mating model with increasing cost of being single. In A, gradations of color are used to represent marriages formed in different time periods. Specifically, bluer points correspond to earlier marriages, and redder points correspond to later marriages.
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