Economics Seminar - "How Broadband & Cell Phone Access have Impacted Marriage and Divorce in the US"

     In the last decade, the use of social media, chat rooms, and dating applications have vastly expanded. Consequently, search costs have lowered in the marriage market, as participants (both single and married) can now search for and gather information more easily on potential partners. By exploiting county level variation in broadband access and cell phone carriers I identify the impact of internet access on marriage and divorce. Search costs are predicted to be inversely related to population density; therefore, interactions between urban density and internet access are included to test for heterogeneous effects of internet expansion on marital demographics.
     Results indicate that increases in internet access, either through broadband or cell phone access, have decreased marriage and increased divorce in rural counties. However, in counties in large metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) internet access has had the exact opposite effect. Expansion in household broadband accounts and cell phone carriers are correlated with increases in the married population and decreases in the divorced or separated populations in large metropolitan counties. Lastly, state level measurements on age at marriage and percent of the ever married population in their first, second or third marriage are incorporated to help place the initial findings in context. Results support that the rise in the married population is both from initial uptake in marriage increasing amongst the youth in urban areas, and by increased re-matching of divorcees in the secondary marriage market.