Searching for and finding a partner via the Internet: the role of gender values

Details

Supervisors

Schnor, Christine ; Zilincikova, Zuzana

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de la population et du développement, à finalité spécialisée: démographie

Abstract

Using the German Family Panel, this master thesis investigates whether gender values are significantly related to where individuals seek and find a romantic partner. Logistic regressions showed that single men who searched for a partner online displayed fewer egalitarian values than those who searched for a partner offline. In the case of individuals who formed a couple recently, we found that women who met their partner on the Internet displayed more traditional values than women who met their partner offline. Years, age, education and past relationships experiences also showed an association with the meeting place used. However, our exploratory part tends to show that within the Internet itself, results differ by the type of site used: while the gender values of those seeking or finding a partner on dating sites and apps did not differ significantly from those seeking or finding offline, it was primarily the use of social media and chat rooms that elicited more traditional gender values. These results have shown that research on online dating has, until now, mainly focused on spaces specifically dedicated to it, but still few studies have focused on the use of social networks as a dating medium.