Partner market opportunities and union formation over the life course—A comparison of different measures

Abstract

Even in the online dating era, individuals will seek intimate partners who live physically nearby. This paper considers the validity of different partner market measures in German NUTS‐3 regions; the often used sex ratio is contrasted with different versions of the availability ratio (AR) and versions of the partner market density (PMD). The paper discusses (a) how conceptional aspects of the partner market are reflected in the various indicators. Using aggregated population data provided by German statistical offices, (b) the partner market in Germany is described as measured by the different partner market indicators. Linking them to micro‐level data from the German Socio‐economic Panel, the paper (c) compares the effects of the various partner market measures on union formation. A simple sex ratio does not show variance over the life course or between cohorts, nor does it determine the rate of couple formation. The AR and PMD reveal more plausible distributions by age and cohort and higher criterion validity, especially when accounting for availableness according to marital status. With regard to men, the AR demonstrates the strongest impact on union formation; with regard to women, PMD seems more important.

Opportunities and Constraints of the Partner Market and Educational Assortative Mating

“…Whereas prior research has used incidences or prevalences of marriage as their unit of analysis, we analyze the impact of the partner market at the moment when couples move in together , because we believe that this event is closer to the situation that actually framed partner choice and avoids endogenous processes. Although prior studies treated the partner market as a more or less time-constant macrovariable, we follow recent findings illustrating that the partner market situation varies not only by region and cohort, but also over the life course of men and women (Eckhard & Stauder, 2019)—with eventual changes in partner market situations between moving in together and marriage. Our measures vary over the life course, because they accurately account for asymmetric age preferences of men and women that vary over the life course , whereas prior studies used crude sex ratios within large age groups.…”

Mating Market and Dynamics of Union Formation

“…Further, it heavily relies on between-country comparisons which likely makes results subject to bias due to unobserved factors. Other studies (Eckhard & Stauder, 2018) adopt a life-course perspective in the measurement of the partner market and its impact on the union formation process in Germany, where educationspecific squeeze measures appear to be poor predictors for the probability of union formation. These contributions focus mainly on methodological aspects about the measurement of the partner market.…”

Do Local Sex Ratios Approximate Subjective Partner Markets?

“…Furthermore, because of filtering questions, the sample has been also restricted to those singles who do not report that they are uninterested in having a partner. Moreover, the analytical sample was restricted to heterosexual individuals because the sex ratio literature focuses on heterosexual individuals, and homosexual relationships only constitute .3% of couples in Germany (Eckhard & Stauder, 2018).…”