Sexual economic theory & the human mating market

ABSTRACT

In this study, we apply economic principles to the heterosexual human mating market using data on the socio-demographics, biology, attractiveness, sexual behaviour, and reproductive history of 3,261 Australian online dating participants. More specifically, by using survey participants attractiveness ratings as a proxy for market value, we are able to quantitatively explore theories of sexual economics (SET), which conceptualizes sexual access as an economic resource supplied by women in the human mating market. Our study tests this theory further by incorporating heterosexual market substitutes (namely, 953 bisexual and pansexual individuals) to more accurately integrate the relevant supply and demand forces impacting market value and the commodity of sexual access. We find not only that bisexual and pansexual women (but not men) enjoy a market premium (7.3% higher; p < 0.001) relative to their heterosexual counterparts, but that, contrary to SET, women’s market value in our sample does not diminish with age. We further find that in line with theory and evidence from evolutionary studies, men with (proxied) resources realize a higher market value (6.1% higher for every increased level of educational attainment; p < 0.001) than those without. In conclusion, SET is just one possible model that seeks to understand the complex multi-dimensionality of modern human sexuality and reproduction through an economics lens. As the internet and online dating now provide a low-cost conduit for human mating market participants, so to can it facilitate further large sample scientific studies of mating market dynamics such as this.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual economic theory
• market value
• attractiveness
• mating market
• sexual orientation

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D10
• J10
• D91

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to James Templeman for all his assistance with this research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Because coupling often results in and is driven by shared wealth or resource accrual, Baumeister and Vohs’ (2004) original work focuses on single men and women, which precludes any analysis of exchange..

² At an introductory level, a commonly used example of a ‘substitute’ in economic theory is Coke and Pepsi, both homogenous sugar-rich carbonated cola drinks for which individuals may state a non-transitive preference but whose consumption is virtually elastic..

³ It is important to note that sexual orientation (as proposed in this study) is not the same as sexual experience. Research has shown some heterosexual individuals report having same sex sexual experiences (Foxman, Aral, and Holmes 1998; Hess, Reynolds, and Fisher 2014). For the purposes of this study, we do not incorporate or analysis any data on participants sexual experience (because it was not collected as part of the original survey), and treat sexuality exclusively as a categorical identity.

⁴ Question: ‘Which of the following terms do you feel best describes your sexual orientation?: Asexual, bisexual, gay, heterosexual, lesbian, pansexual, other’..

⁵ Question: ‘All things considered, on a scale of 0–100, how attractive would you say you are? From 0 = not attractive at all to 100 = extremely attractive’.

⁶ Question: ‘In an average week, how many times would you have sex?’.

⁷ To control for population-level differences in our macro variables, we replicate all multivariate analyses clustering by both IRSAD rank and IRSAD population. All statistically significant results remain robust for all six specifications (Table 2: specifications 2–4 and Table 3: specifications 2–4) that employ the two macro variables..

⁸ This finding aligns with research showing higher tendency for twinning in women, as from a fitness perspective it would deliver double from one sexual access (Varella et al. 2018)..