Sure, you were “in love.” But economists — using evidence from "Bridgerton" to Tinder — point to what’s called “assortative mating.” And it has some unpleasant consequences for society.
Mark Gonye is from Spain, but a few years ago he moved to Norway.
I live here with my girlfriend.
Is your girlfriend spanish?
No, she's from Estonia, actually.
Did you meet her at a ball at the queen's palace?
No, no, no.
I'm as far as possible from the aristocracy.
So you're saying, for the record, you're not an aristocrat?
I'm not an aristocrat.
Although Gonier is not an aristocrat.
He is the next best thing, at least in my book.
He's an economist.
He teaches at the University of Bergen.
Among his research interests are economic history and marriage.
Most people, when they think about marriage, they think about it in terms of preferences and in terms of love.
But economists aren't most people.
We economists, we tend to focus on other factors, and namely the fact that the person you end up with is not only the person you choose, but it's also determined by the set of people that you have met.
So this idea is what encapsulates the idea of the marriage market.
Is marriage really a market?
That's the question we'll try to answer today through the lens of Bridgerton.