Partner choice and parameter estimates: modelling the effect of preferences

Assortative mating, the process through which people interactively choose each other as spouses, is a complex, consequential and informative phenomenon.1 It has important consequences for the structure of society, for inequality and integration, and it tells a lot about social structures, patterns of interactions and preferences. However, it is a complex process, and while tempting it is problematic to read preferences directly from the empirical outcomes. The mapping of preferences to outcomes in a process subject to constraints is not straightforward. Outcomes are constrained in complex ways, not least the gendered distribution of the characteristics of interest, the competition among peers for alters with the desired characteristics, and the fact that alters are agents with preferences too. Additionally, the fact that the process is dynamic, where the context changes continually, not only because of external historical reasons, but also endogenously, as the distribution of single people changes as others marry.