Job Prestige and Mobile Dating Success: A Field Experiment

Abstract

Research using data on offline couple formation has confirmed predictions from evolutionary psychology that women (not men) attach value to the earnings potential of a potential partner. In this study, we examine whether the partner preferences with respect to earnings potential survive in an online context with fewer search and social frictions. We did this by means of a field experiment on the popular mobile dating app Tinder. Thirty-two fictitious Tinder profiles that randomly differed in job status and job prestige were evaluated by 4800 other, real Tinder users. We find that both men and women do not use job status or job prestige as a determinant of whom to show initial interest in on Tinder. However, we do find evidence that, after this initial phase, men less frequently start a conversation with women when those women are unemployed. Still, also then men do not care about the particular job prestige of employed women.