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The Internetization of Marriage: Effects of the Diffusion of High-Speed Internet on Marriage, Divorce, and Assortative Mating
Luca Stella, Francesco Billari, Osea Giuntella

##manager.scheduler.building##: Velodromo - Bocconi University
##manager.scheduler.room##: N03
Date: 2019-01-25 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Last modified: 2018-12-26

Abstract


The advent of the Internet has radically changed the process of finding a stable partner, in two directions. First, the Internet developed online tools for dating, mating, and partnership formation. Second, also offline partnership dynamics is affected by the presence of the Internet. We define this all-encompassing bi-directional relationship as the Internetization of Marriage. Empirically, we study the effects of the diffusion of high-speed Internet on the transition to marriage, divorce, and educational assortative mating. We also exploit the unique features of broadband diffusion in Germany to provide instrumental variable estimates of causal effects, and we study whether the effects are stratified by education, giving rise to ''digital inequalities''. We find that high-speed Internet increased the hazard of marriage and educational homogamy, while it has no significant effects on the hazard of divorce. We do not find clear evidence of heterogeneous effects by education.


Keywords


Internetization, Marriage, Divorce, Assortative Mating