Age Homophily on a Czech Online Dating Site

Abstract

This article examines age homophily on a Czech online dating site using real user data. With a sample of 10 563 unique users and the aid of negative binomial regression, we test two hypotheses based on previous studies of online dating - namely, that men and women show different partner preferences with respect to age and that women in particular favour age homophily in their contacts. The model results support these hypotheses. Men are observed to prefer younger women, while women prefer men who are the same age or older than they are. Given that there are significantly fewer women on the dating site, they are the ones who choose, and the pairing result depends on whether they respond to a contact or not. The youngest women are contacted by men of all ages. Although men contact much younger women, they have a better chance of success with older women. Our conclusions are thus consistent with international research on homophily in the online environment and to some extent the results correspond to patterns of age homogamy in the Czech Republic. Unlike international research, however, the attractiveness of Czech men is found to decrease as they age.