Quentin Lippmann (Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas/University of Essex) will present "The Hierarchy of Partner Preferences"

Abstract :
"I digitized data from matrimonial ads published in major news outlets from Canada, India and France from 1950 to 1995 to document how partner preferences have evolved over time. In the two Western countries, I first show a gradual disappearance of economic criteria and an increase in the importance of personality traits. The decline of economic criteria is greater for women and particularly apparent after the 1970s. In India, the importance of these criteria remained relatively stable. Second, I collected data from 1995 published in nearly 50 English-speaking outlets from multiple parts of Canada, the United-States and the United Kingdom. In all these outlets, I find that personality criteria are consistently the most sought for criteria in a potential partner. I argue that these evolutions reflect a hierarchy of partner preferences, whereby the demand for non-material needs rests on the satisfaction of material needs such as economic ones."