Is Online Dating Widening the Wealth Gap?

Completely rewrite the following article in a fresh and original style. Ensure the new content conveys the same sentiment and message as the original. The rewritten article should:

1. Start with a compelling introduction that hooks the reader (do not label this section).

2. Maintain any lists and points as they are, using numbering and bullet points where necessary. Rewrite the explanations and discussions around these points to make them fresh and original. Ensure the lists are formatted correctly with proper numbering or bullet points.

3. Organize the content into clear, logical sections. Subheadings are not mandatory. Each section should have a subheading only if it enhances readability and comprehension.

4. End with a strong conclusion that summarizes the key points and provides a closing thought or call to action (do not label this section).

5. Ensure it is formatted properly with adequate line spacing

Make sure the article flows coherently, is engaging, and keeps the reader interested until the end. Reorganize and structure the content efficiently to enhance readability and comprehension. Use varied sentence structures and vocabulary to avoid monotony. Avoid directly copying any sentences or phrases from the original content. Here is the original content:

Online dating may be partially to blame for an increase in income inequality in the US in recent decades, according to a research paper.

Since the emergence of dating apps that allow people to look for a partner based on criteria including education, Americans have increasingly been marrying someone more like themselves. That accounts for about half of the rise in income inequality among households between 1980 and 2020, researchers from the Federal Reserve Banks of Dallas and St. Louis and Haverford College found.

Using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey from 2008 to 2021, when online dating quickly became prevalent, the economists found that women became slightly more selective when choosing partners based on age, while men became slightly more selective based on education.

But when the researchers compared that with data on married couples from 1960 and 1980, they found that people in the recent period increasingly went for partners with the same wage and education levels. And while many people married someone of the same ethnicity, people became less and less selective on race over time.

Who people marry has a major impact on household income. The research shows that the two main contributors to inequality through the selection of a future spouse are education and skills. They are followed, to a much lesser extent, by income and age, while race plays a relatively inconsequential role, co-author Paulina Restrepo-Echavarría, an economic policy advisor at the St. Louis Fed, said in a blog post describing the paper.

Overall, the predominance of online apps to find a future partner has led to a 3-percentage-point increase in the Gini coefficient — a widely used measure of income inequality, the research shows.

“We find that the increase in income inequality over the past half a century is explained to a large extent by sorting on vertical characteristics, such as income and skill, and their interaction with education,” the economists wrote in their paper.